Good Morning Britain’s Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid have addressed Will Smith’s apology to Chris Rock after slapping him at the 2022 Oscars.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the King Richard star – who won an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the film on Sunday evening – issued a public apology on social media after striking Rock on stage at the event.
Rock had made a quip about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, despite the actress previously speaking out about suffering from hair loss condition alopecia.
In his apology, Smith wrote: ‘I would like to publicly apologise to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.’
On Tuesday’s edition of GMB, co-hosts Madeley and Reid showed a clip of Whoopi Goldberg sharing her views on the incident on American talk show The View, when she said: ‘I get it, not everybody acts the way we would like them to act under pressure. And he snapped.’
Madeley described Goldberg’s comment as a ‘fair assessment’, adding: ‘No one’s defending what he did, I’m certainly not defending what he did, but he’s a human being, under extraordinary pressures at a time you and I have never gone through at the Oscars.
‘To have his wife mocked because she had alopecia was too much for him.’
Madeley opened today’s GMB by saying that he ‘bumped into a magistrate’, asking them what they would have done if Smith’s slap of Rock had occurred in the UK at an event such as the Baftas.
The TV host said that the magistrate said she would be looking at the words ‘mitigation and provocation’, with the expectation that Smith would ‘plead guilty’ and then expect his defence counsel ‘to say he was provoked’.
Reid questioned if comedians who perform jokes that ‘might offend people’ may now fear a similar situation occurring to them with a member of the audience, as Madeley replied: ‘It begs the question, what is a dangerous joke?’
The broadcaster opined that if a comedian makes ‘what we would perceive as a dangerous joke’, then ‘there is an element of risk-taking’.
‘I don’t think anybody should be at risk of assault,’ Reid added.
‘I couldn’t agree more. But that’s the definition of a dangerous joke. So they are to some extent taking a risk,’ Madeley added.
In his apology, Smith emphasised that ‘violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive’.
‘My behaviour at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally,’ he said.
He added: ‘I would also like to apologise to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologise to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family.’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
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