Can Will Smith Recover From The Slap? Publicists Weigh In.

At the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, Will Smith, prompted by a joke at his wife’s expense, walked up on the stage and slapped Chris Rock before heading back to his seat to yell, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.” He repeated it again, and that’s when everyone realized it wasn’t a skit.

It was a completely unexpected occurrence for the movie star, who has had a nearly blemish-free 30-year career and used to keep his personal life under wraps. But everything changed when his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, launched her Facebook talk show The Red Table Talk, where she discusses deeply personal topics, including her and Will’s marital issues. When singer August Alsina revealed in 2020 that he had been in a relationship with Pinkett Smith, the married couple addressed it by having a conversation about it on the show. Pinkett Smith called it an “entanglement,” which is now part of the pop culture lexicon, and Will became a meme. All of that, along with a revealing memoir he released in 2021 titled Will, left Smith a bit more vulnerable, more human, and more exposed than ever. And Chris Rock’s off-color quip about Pinkett Smith’s haircut was enough to break the King Richard Oscar winner in front of 16.6 million viewers.

But the question now is: Can Will recover from such a shocking event? And does he even need to?