Police Were Ready to Arrest Will Smith at Oscars, Producer Says

Authorities were ready to arrest Will Smith after he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, the awards show producer said.

"They were saying, 'This is battery.' That was the word they used in that moment," Will Packer, who produced the 2022 Oscars, told Good Morning America. "They said, 'We will go get him. We are prepared. We will go get him right now. You can press charges. We can arrest him.'"

But it was allegedly Rock who put a stop to it all and kept Smith from being removed and arrested.

"They were laying out the options, and as they were talking, Chris … was being very dismissive of those options," Packer recalled. "He was like, 'No, I'm fine.' … Even to the point where I said, 'Rock, let them finish.' The LAPD officers finish laying out what his options were. And they said, 'Would you like us to take any action?' And he said, 'No.'"

The Los Angeles Police Department previously confirmed to BAZAAR.com that the comedian refused to press charges against the King Richard actor, despite being visibly shaken by the slap. "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me," he told the Oscars audience at the time, ironically calling the moment "the greatest moment in the history of television."

In a statement, the LAPD said, "LAPD investigative entities are aware of an incident between two individuals during the Academy Awards program. The incident involved one individual slapping another. The individual involved has declined to file a police report. If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report."

Following the ceremony in Los Angeles's Dolby Theatre last Sunday, Packer tweeted, "Welp… I said it wouldn’t be boring #Oscars."

He later explained that "Black people have a defiant spirit of laughter when it comes to dealing with pain because there has been so much of it," and added that the incident between Smith and Rock "was a very painful moment" for him "on many levels."

Smith—who smacked Rock after being offended by a G.I. Jane joke he made about wife Jada Pinkett Smith—publicly apologized to Rock in a statement shared on Instagram after the Academy Awards, and while the comedian hasn't responded publicly, he did address the incident at his recent stand-up show in Boston, where he received a standing ovation from fans.

"How was your weekend?" the star said at the start of the show, giving the crowd a wink. "I don't have a bunch of shit about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I'm still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point I'll talk about that shit. And it will be serious and funny."

Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets. 

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