The Academy of Oscars decided on Friday to ban Will Smith from any ceremony or event it will organize for a period of ten years, as punishment for the slap that the actor dealt comedian Chris Rock in the middle of gala evening at the end of March.”Mr. Smith will not be permitted to attend any Academy event or program, in person or virtually,” whether or not it is the Oscars, and effective immediately, write in a press release the leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy accepted the resignation of Will Smith, which he had submitted last week, but did not withdraw the Oscar for best actor received from him last month for The Williams Method. “I accept and I respect the decision of the Academy,” responded Will Smith in a brief written statement. The Academy did not mention any ban on the actor from claiming future Oscars. The Friday morning meeting of the Academy’s board of directors, attended by stars such as Steven Spielberg and Whoopi Goldberg, was part of the disciplinary proceedings initiated against the actor after his slap in the middle of the gala evening of the Academy Awards. , David Rubin, and its managing director, Dawn Hudson. “We want to express our deepest gratitude to Mr. Rock for keeping his cool in these extraordinary circumstances,” they added in their statement. Visibly as surprised and shocked as the public by the act of Will Smith, the comedian had nevertheless taken up the thread of the evening as if nothing had happened, then refusing to file a complaint against the 53-year-old actor. s 94th Oscars were shocking, painful and inexcusable,” admitted the actor, five days after taking the stage to slap comedian Chris Rock who had just made a joke about his wife’s cropped hair. Jada Pinkett Smith said publicly a few years ago to be suffering from alopecia, a disease causing significant hair loss. A few tens of minutes after the slap, Will Smith returned to the Oscars stage to receive the prize for best actor, for his role in The Method Williams. “Betrayed” confidence He had made no act of contrition at the time, contenting himself with lambasting “people who disrespect you” and saying that “love makes you do crazy things”. It was only the next day, after the Academy announced an internal investigation into the incident, that the actor issued an apology to Chris Rock and the organizers. He then pleaded to have reacted “emotionally” to “a joke about Jada’s health problem”. Last Friday, when he finally announced his resignation, Will Smith admitted to having “betrayed the confidence of the Academy. I deprived other contestants and winners the chance to celebrate their extraordinary work”. “I will accept whatever consequences the board of directors deems appropriate,” he added in his text. Neither Harvey Weinstein, a former Hollywood mogul convicted of rape and sexual assault, nor director Roman Polanski had been forced to return their statuettes after being expelled from the Academy. The day after the incident, actress Whoopi Goldberg she herself had considered that this eventuality was unlikely concerning Will Smith. “There will be consequences, I’m sure, but I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do, especially because Chris” Rock has decided not to press charges, she had said on television .For his part, the comedian has not spoken publicly about this incident. “I’m still digesting what happened. So at some point I’m going to talk about this stuff. And it’s going to be serious and funny,” he said on March 30 at the start of a show. .
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