Oscars producer Will Packer gave a candid interview to ABC News this morning, confirming what reports suggested this week: the slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars was not a bit, Rockâs joke about Smithâs wife Jada Pinkett Smith that provoked Smith was not planned, and Smith was almost forcibly removed from the Academy Awards. Packer gave new behind-the-scenes intel on what the conversations he was part of were like and revealed that the LAPD was ready to arrest Smith after the onstage move.
âThat is an absolute fact,â Packer said. âThe LAPD made it clear: âWe will do whatever you want us to do, and one of the options is that we will go and arrest him right now.ââ Rock declined to press charges.
In Packerâs office after the incident, the LAPD were âlaying out very clearly what Chrisâ rights are. They were saying: This is battery. We will go get him. Weâre prepared. Weâre prepared to get him right now. You can press charges. Weâll arrest him.â
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Packer was not aware that others had asked Smith to leave the Oscars.
Co-producer Shayla Cowan âtold me that they were about to physically remove Will Smith, and I had not been a part of those conversations,â he said. âAnd so I immediately went to the Academy leadership that was on site and I said, âChris Rock doesnât want that.â I said, âRock has made it clear that he does not want to make a bad situation worse.â That was Chrisâ image. His tone was not retaliatory, his tone was not aggressive and angry. And so I was advocating for what Rock wanted at that time, which was not to physically remove Will Smith at that time. Because, as it has now been explained to me, that was the only option at that point. It has been explained to me that there was a conversation that I was not a part of to ask him to voluntarily leave.â
A source close to Rock told TMZ this morning that Packer saying Rock objected to Smith leaving the Oscars isnât true. âChris told Packer âIâm not pressing charges. All I want to do is leave.â He was never asked if he wanted Will removed. This is the Academy covering itself,â that source said.
Packer added that he thought the Smith-Rock moment was a bit at first too. Rock âdidnât tell one of the planned jokes. He was just immediately freestyling,â he said of the Pinkett Smith comment, where Rock compared her shaved head hairstyle to G.I. Jane. Pinkett Smith has been open about having alopecia, a hair loss condition.
âI wasnât concerned [when I saw Smith walking]. I thought okay, heâs going to say something or come at him, something funny is going to happen because thatâs the nature of Chris, and thatâs the nature of Will so letâs see what happens,â Packer said.
âOnce I saw Will yelling at the stage with such vitriol, my heart dropped. And I just remember thinking, âOh no, oh no. Not like this,ââ Packer continued. âChris was keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs. My heart was just in my stomach because of everything about it and what it represented and what it looked like and who was involved. All of that. Iâve never felt so immediately devastated like I did in that moment.â
Packer said that Smith apologized to him the next morning. âHe said, âThis should have been a gigantic moment for you. And he expressed his embarrassment, and that was the extent of it.â
What disappointed Packer the most was Smith not apologizing to Rock in his Best Actor speech later in the ceremony. âI think what many of us were hoping is that he would go on that stage and make it better. It couldnât be made right in that moment, because of what happened,â Packer said. âBut I think we were hoping that he would stand on that stage and say, âWhat just happened minutes ago was absolutely and completely wrong. Chris Rock, Iâm so sorry. Please forgive me.â Thatâs what I was hoping for. I felt like he was gonna win, and I was hoping that if he stayed, he [would say] that.â
When Smith didnât, Packer regretted letting Smith stay. âNow, you donât have the optics of somebody who committed this act, didnât nail it in terms of a conciliatory acceptance speech in that moment, who then continued to be in the room.â
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