Will Smith refused to leave Oscars after slap; Chris Rock breaks silence

LOS ANGELES • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Wednesday that actor Will Smith was asked to leave the Oscar ceremony after he slapped Chris Rock on Sunday night onstage, but that the actor had refused to go.

"Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated," the academy said in a statement announcing that it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Smith.

"While we would like to clarify that Mr Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognise we could have handled the situation differently."

Shortly after the revelation, Rock used a sold-out comedy show in Boston to make his first public comments about the incident since Smith slapped him during the live global broadcast of the Academy Awards.

"How was your weekend?" Rock asked the crowd at the Wilbur in Boston's theatre district.

"I'm still kind of processing what happened," he said, briefly addressing the topic everyone was talking about.

He promised to discuss it in greater depth later. "It'll be serious, it'll be funny, but I'd love to - I'm going to tell some jokes."

Rock's entrance was met with an immediate standing ovation, and after audience members took their seats, they stood up again, prompting the comedian to try to quieten them so he could start.

"Let me do a show, y'all," he said. "Y'all got me all misty."

He addressed the elephant in the room, noting that he did not have a lot to say about what happened. "So if you came to hear that, I had, like, a whole show I wrote before this weekend," he said.

Rock's grace under pressure that night was one of the few things that drew praise in the aftermath of an ugly moment. He stayed onstage after he was struck, quipped to the stunned audience that "that was the greatest night in the history of television" and went on with the show.

The Los Angeles Police Department said shortly after the incident that the person involved - presumably Rock - had "declined to file a police report".

The academy's revelation that Smith had been asked to leave came after its board of governors met on Wednesday to discuss the incident. The organisation did not describe who had made the request.

This week, two industry officials with knowledge of the situation said there had been serious discussions about removing Smith from the theatre, but did not say he had been asked to leave.

The academy said it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Smith, who would be given a chance to respond.

The incident unfolded when Smith reacted to a joke Rock had made about the buzzed hair of his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith.

Smith left his seat in the audience, went onstage and slapped the comedian across the face, then warned him - with expletives - not to speak about Pinkett Smith.

Pinkett Smith has alopecia, which causes hair loss and has led her to regularly buzz her hair.

Shortly afterwards, Smith won an Oscar for his lead performance in King Richard. He used his speech to defiantly cast himself as a defender of others, and apologised to the academy and his fellow nominees - but not to Rock.

The next day, after the academy condemned his actions and opened an inquiry, Smith apologised to Rock in a public statement and said he had been "out of line".

In an Instagram post, Oscar co-host Amy Schumer said she was "still triggered and traumatised" by the turn of events.

Her co-host, actress Wanda Sykes, said in a clip from an upcoming episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that the moment was "sickening" to her.

"For them to let him stay in that room and enjoy the rest of the show and accept his award - I was, like, how gross is this? This is just the wrong message."

NYTIMES