Will Smith shocked the world for all the wrong reasons at the Academy Awards.
People are not talking about his Best Actor victory or any other award winners.
And Smith’s Oscar breakdown had one jaw-dropping consequence.
All hell broke loose after Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock in the middle of the Academy Awards.
Rock told a mild joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who was not amused, and that apparently set the Bad Boys star off.
That’s when Smith marched onto the stage and made Oscars history with his most shameful performance.
Some have speculated that the slap was all staged, but it clearly was not, as the fallout from the incident is costing Smith dearly.
Multiple projects that he had in the pipeline have now been put on hold.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
“[S]oon after Smith’s attack on Chris Rock on the Oscars stage, Netflix quietly moved [Fast and Loose] to the back burner. Fast and Loose was to tell the story of a crime boss who loses his memory after an attack. Piecing together clues, he discovers that he has led a double identity as a wealthy kingpin and a broke CIA agent. It appears that Netflix was understandably wary of moving forward. It is unclear whether it will try to make the project with another star and director.”
Apple and Sony are also both pushing the pause button on Smith properties.
The Hollywood Reporter continued:
“Smith now has Apple+’s slave escape drama Emancipation in post-production. The streamer had planned a 2022 debut but has not dated its release. Apple declined to comment. Otherwise, Bad Boys 4 at Sony had been in active development — Smith received 40 pages of the script prior to the Oscars — but will now pause, a source said. A few other projects in pre-production are likely to do the same.”
Smith recently resigned from the Academy amid deliberation on the punishment the organization plans to dole out.
Academy president David Rubin said of Smith’s resignation:
“We have received and accepted Mr. Will Smith’s immediate resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. We will continue to move forward with our disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Smith for violations of the Academy’s Standards of Conduct, in advance of our next scheduled board meeting on April 18.”
The Hollywood condemnation of Smith has been near universal.
Actor and comedian Jim Carrey arguably had the harshest rebuke of Smith when he said:
“I was sickened…I was sickened by the standing ovation [when Will later won the Academy Award for best actor]. I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse. It really felt like, ‘Oh, this is a really clear indication that we’re not the cool club anymore.’”
Carrey also said he would have sued Smith for $200 million because that “insult” will haunt Rock for the rest of his career.
It looks like it could haunt Smith’s career, too.