Joe Rogan slams Will Smith for setting 'terrible precedent' after slap
‘Are people going to decide to go on stage and smack a comedian now?’ Joe Rogan slams Will Smith for setting ‘terrible precedent’ after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars
- Comedian Joe Rogan, 54, slammed Will Smith, 53, for slapping Chris Rock, 57, at the Oscars on Sunday
- He said he worried ‘dumb people’ will now think it is okay ‘to go on stage and smack a comedian’
- Smith attacked Rock after he made a joke about the actor’s wife Jada and could now face suspension from the Academy
- Rogan was also shocked that the Academy allowed him to give a speech after accepting award for Best Actor
- Smith later apologized to both the Academy and Rock for his ‘behavior’
Podcasting giant Joe Rogan, who also performs as a standup comic, slammed Will Smith for setting a ‘terrible precedent’ by slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Rogan, 54, worried that ‘dumb people’ will now have license to start attacking comedians after Smith, 53, stormed the Dolby Theatre stage Sunday and slapped Rock, 57, for a GI Jane joke aimed at the actor’s wife.
‘It sets a terrible precedent in so many different ways,’ Rogan said on his podcast on Tuesday. ‘It sets a terrible precedent for comedy clubs. Like, are people going to decide to go on stage and smack a comedian now.’
The actor went on to win the award for best male actor for his performance in King Richard and was allowed to give a rambling and teary speech where he apologized for his behavior.
The Academy will meet Wednesday to decide whether to discipline Smith.
Rogan was left dumbfounded by the Academy’s decision to allow Smith to go up and accept his Oscar.
‘It’s a rare instance that someone so enormously famous and successful like Will Smith that they literally still allowed him to not just win the Academy Award, but also go up and accept it and give a speech after he assaulted a small comedian on stage.’
Comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan, 54, slammed Will Smith, 53, after he attacked Chris Rock, 57, over a GI Jane joke at the Oscars on Sunday. Rogan said he worried ‘dumb people’ will now think it is okay ‘to go on stage and smack a comedian now,’ on his podcast on Tuesday
Smith attacked Rock after he made a joke toward the actor’s wife Jada, who was clearly unimpressed with the joke when the camera turned toward her. Despite Rock insisting the joke was ‘funny,’ Smith walked up to the comedian and slapped him and told him to ‘keep my wife’s name out of your f**king mouth’
Rogan’s guest, MMA fighter Josh Barnett, agreed: ‘They should have ejected him.’
‘One-hundred percent, 100 percent,’ Rogan agreed. ‘You can’t just go smack a man in the face in front of the world and go about business as usual.
Smith stunned Rock with an open-handed slap after the funnyman made fun of Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. As Rock insisted the joke was ‘funny,’ Smith left his seat and slapped him, then yelled ‘keep my wife’s name out of your f**king mouth.’
‘What is it saying as a society that the people that we look up to – for whatever reason, for good or for bad, we look up to actors – and the Academy Awards are supposed to be them in their most regal outfits, their best behavior. And to drop down to violence for something so innocuous as a GI Jane joke.’
Rogan isn’t the only celebrity to denounce Smith for his actions. Fellow actor Jim Carrey, 60, said he was ‘sickened by the standing ovation’ after Smith won his award.
‘I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse. It really felt like this is a clear indication that we’re not the cool club anymore,’ he said on CBS Morning News.
Benedict Cumberbatch, a fellow Best Actor nominee, as well as Best Director nominee Paul Thomas Anderson and actress Maya Rudolph were some of the stars who stood for Smith’s win. Venus and Serena Williams, whose father was portrayed by Smith in King Richard, also stood.
Smith apologized for his actions on Instagram, writing that his ‘behavior’ ‘was unacceptable and inexcusable’
‘This is a season for healing and I’m here for it,’ the actress posted to Instagram Tuesday, two days after the incident that stunned millions of viewers
Rock was making a joke about Jada’s haircut, comparing her to GI Jane
Carrey, who briefly overlapped with Rock in the early 90s on Fox’s In Living Color, claimed Rock didn’t file charges about the slap because he ‘didn’t want the hassle’ and suggested Smith should have been arrested.
‘I’d have announced this morning that I was suing Will for $200 million because that video’s gonna be there forever. It’s gonna be ubiquitous. That insult is gonna last a very long time,’ Carrey said.
The Mask actor seemed to indicate that expressing disapproval of the joke, saying something on Twitter or even yelling from the audience wasn’t beyond the pale – but what Smith ended up doing crossed the line.
‘You do not have the right to walk up on stage and smack somebody on the face because they said words,’ Carrey said.
The Ace Ventura star suggested that something was ‘going on’ inside of Smith that caused him to do that, and that he acted selfishly.
‘It didn’t escalate, it came out of nowhere because Will has something going on inside him that’s frustrated and I wish him the best, I really do,’ Carrey said. ‘I don’t have anything against Will Smith, he’s done great things.
‘It cast a pall over everybody’s shining moment, a lot of people worked really hard to get to that place,’ The Truman Show star added. ‘It is no mean feat to go through all the stuff you have to go through when you get nominated for an Oscar. It’s a gauntlet of devotion. It was just a selfish moment.’
Carrey’s comments come as The View host Whoopi Goldberg, who is also a member of the Academy board of governors, said she believes Smith will be able to keep his Oscar but will face ‘big consequences because nobody is okay with what happened.’
Disciplinary action could include anything from forcing Smith to hand back his Oscar to the most severe punishment – suspension from the Academy – which would put Smith among the ranks of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Crosby, who were both expelled for sexual misconduct.
Goldberg doubled down on her promise to punish Smith during Tuesday’s show, saying, ‘There are consequences. There are big consequences because nobody is okay with what happened. Nobody, nobody, nobody.’
The host also explained that producer Will Packer decided not to remove Smith from the event, ‘because that would have been another 15 [to] 20 minute-explanation about why we’re taking the black man out five seconds before they’re about to decide whether he’s won an Oscar or not.’
‘I believe [producer] Will Packer made the right decision, he said let’s get to the rest of this so we can deal with it wholeheartedly,’ Goldberg said, adding ‘this is not the first time craziness has happened on stage, but this is the first time we’ve seen anybody assault anybody on stage.’
Goldberg also addressed why no one comforted Rock after the incident, while several people appeared to support Smith.
‘The thing I also need to tell people is that the reason no one got up to go comfort Chris is because they weren’t going to let anyone else on stage… There were people there for Chris,’ she said.
She added that the reason people went over to Smith is ‘people thought Oh my god, is he having a break? Do we need to get him out? What do we need to do?’
Two days after the incident, Jada, 50, finally broke her silence with an Instagram post that read: ‘This is a season for healing and I’m here for it.’ She has remained quiet since the dramatic events unfolded Sunday night.
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