Will Smith slaps Chris Rock in the middle of Oscars presentation

The Oscars were seemingly going along smoothly when Chris Rock was introduced as the next presenter. Rock threw some jabs out there in typical fashion, but his joke about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith apparently hit a sore spot. NSFW.

It’s hard to tell whether this was staged or not, but ABC decided to mute the next 30 seconds or so while Smith was seen mouthing “keep my wife’s name out of your mouth” to Rock. He added some choice words to that phrase. Rock had made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith looking GI Jane. Will originally seemed to laugh off the joke but Jada was not impressed and that’s what triggered this exchange.

There have been some questionable presenter decisions at this Oscars ceremony but this takes the cake. If this was a planned exchange to gain publicity, mission accomplished. If there is actually some bad blood between Rock and the Smiths, we’ll hear more about it in the coming days. For now, we’ll just keep analyzing the uncensored international video.

Update 7:47 p.m. Yeah, this isn’t a “work” as they would say in wrestling parlance. Will Smith really hit Chris Rock in the middle of the Oscars.