At this point, it’s nearly impossible not to notice that the past week has been dominated by coverage and discussion of an incident that saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock across the face at the 94th Academy Awards for a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense.
Nonetheless, that didn’t make it any easier to figure out where the two men stood with each other in the days that immediately followed the Oscars. Because while a statement attributed to Sean “Diddy” Combs suggested that Rock and Smith had made up shortly before Smith’s public apology , others maintained that the two hadn’t spoken at all since the incident.
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And since Rock has only now broken his silence about that night, fans previously turned to his brother Tony for something of an inside scoop on the situation.
Although he didn’t have much to say, what he was willing to share was pretty revealing.
Among the first questions Rock received was whether Smith had genuinely slapped his brother or whether the whole event was staged.
And in his responses, he not only confirmed the slap was real but wondered what either Smith or his brother would have to gain from staging it.
Indeed, it seems unlikely that a man who had largely enjoyed a longstanding positive reputation in Hollywood would be interested in attracting widespread condemnation from his peers and fans.
And since Smith had already apologized to his brother by the time Rock had started responding to questions from Twitter, he was naturally asked how he felt about it.
And in keeping with his tendency to respond to such questions with single-word replies, his answer didn’t exactly go into detail but it provided some insight into where things stand at the moment.
When asked “Do you approve of the apology?” Rock said, “No.”
And for those who were looking for an explanation as to why, we can get some hints for his reasoning in his other responses.
That’s because when he was asked if his family would be open to a dialogue with Smith in light of their history together and Smith’s reputation up to this point, Rock responded that they were still waiting to hear from him.
These responses led another person to ask, “So Diddy was lying when he said Chris and Will made up that night and are good now?”
Again, Rock responded to this with a simple “Yep.”
But when it comes to any consequences he would like to see for Smith for his actions (he was asked whether Smith’s Oscar should be taken away), he implied that there wasn’t much point in asking him because it’s not his call to make.
