Atlanta-based Oscar lead producer Will Packer said Chris Rock did not want Will Smith removed after he was slapped by the actor over a joke he made about Smith’s wife.
“I was advocating what Rock wanted in that time, which was not to physically remove Will Smith at that time,” Packer told “Good Morning America” correspondent T.J. Holmes in an interview that aired exclusively on Friday morning. “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.”
Rock had come on stage to introduce the best documentary. Packer said he knew Rock’s rehearsed jokes and thought he was “going to kill.” But Rock went off script with the “G.I. Jane 2″ joke.
“He was just immediately free styling,” Packer said. “But I tell you, if there is anybody that you don’t worry about going out in front of a live audience and riffing off the cuff, Chris Rock. Nobody’s better!”
When Smith went on stage, Packer thought it was a bit Rock and Smith had pre-planned. “Once I saw Will yelling at the stage with such vitriol, my heart dropped,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh no. Oh no. Not like this.’ Chris was keeping his head while everybody else was losing theirs.”
He hated what the action represented, especially given the people involved. “I never felt so immediately devastated,” he said.
Only after Rock went backstage did Packer confirm that Smith had actually struck Rock. Packer asked Rock point blank if that hit was real. Rock said yes and told Packer, “I just took a punch from Muhammad Ali,” referencing the fact Smith once played the boxer in a film. “He was immediately in joke mode but you could tell he was very much still in shock,”
Packer said Rock told him that he was fine and “let’s just get past this. I just want to get out of here.”
The Los Angeles Police Department came to Packer’s office and said Rock could have Smith arrested for a charge of battery. Rock said he did not want to pursue that option. “I did not have any conversation with Will,” Packer said, though the Academy said they did ask Smith to leave and he said no.
Co-producer Shayla Cowan told Packer before the best actor Oscar announcement that they were about to physically remove Smith. “I immediately went to Academy leadership on site and said, ‘Chris Rock doesn’t want that.’ ... His tone was not retaliatory. His tone was not aggressive angry.”
Smith on Monday apologized publicly. He also reached out to Packer Monday and did the same. “He expressed his embarrassment and that was the extent of it,” Packer said.
Rock at a public stand-up show in Boston Wednesday that he was still processing the incident and didn’t offer his feelings about it.
Packer defended the audience for giving Smith a standing ovation after his best actor win speech, saying they knew Smith a certain way and “were hoping somehow some way that this was an aberration.” At the same time, “all these people saw their friend at this absolutely worst moment and were hoping that they could encourage and lift him up somehow and he’d somehow try to make it better.”
He said Smith missed an opportunity on stage by apologizing to the nominees and the Academy but not to Rock personally.
“I think many of us were hoping that he would go on that stage and make it better,” he said. “It couldn’t be made right in that moment.”
Instead, a tearful Smith at times defended his action. “Love will make you do crazy things,” Smith said.
Packer said the energy in the room was super positive up to the slap. But after that, ‘it was like somebody poured concrete in that room. It was this feeling of, ‘What just happened? Is this real? How am I supposed to react?’ It sucked the life out of that room and it never came back.”
He credited Rock’s ability to maintain his composure to salvaging the night. “Chris handled the moment with such grace and aplomb. It allowed the show to continue.”
Packer, known for producing films such as “Girls Trip” and “Ride Along,” led the first all-Black producing team at the Oscars, which was celebrating its 94th year. The ratings went up from a record low in 2021. He said he got a lot of positive comments from colleagues and friends (though critics, as usual, were mixed.)
“It was a show that moved and was exciting,” Packer said. “There was so much inclusivity on the show. We had all these moments that are overshadowed now. That’s the bittersweet part of it.”
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