Will Smith is “deeply remorseful” for slapping Chris Rock at this year’s Oscar ceremony. On Friday, the King Richard actor broke his silence in a five-minute, 44-second video on his official YouTube page, titled “It’s been a minute…”
“Over the last few months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and personal work. You asked a lot of fair questions that I wanted to take some time to answer,” words on the screen read. Then Smith appears in a white “W” baseball hat and dives headfirst into those questions, which percolated after what has been called “the slap heard round the world.”
“Why didn’t you apologize to Chris in your acceptance speech?” Smith reads. “I was fogged out by that point,” he replies. “It’s all fuzzy.” Smith goes on to say that he has reached out to Rock, but “the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk.” According to Smith, Rock says that he’ll reach out to the King Richard actor when he’s ready to do so.
“So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you,” Smith says in the video, directly to camera. “My behavior was unacceptable. And I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Source: Vanity Fair
