photo source, Getty Images
The Smiths at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, the aftermath of the American Academy Awards.
After Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock in the face for joking around his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hairstyle at the 94th Academy Awards on the 27th (local time), Pinkett Smith broke the silence.
Pinkett Smith wrote “the season of healing” in a short sentence posted on Instagram. It seemed like he was referring to the incident at the Academy Awards this time.
Her husband, Will Smith, has been criticized by the Academy for the incident.
On the 28th, just one day after the incident, Will Smith publicly apologized for his actions, calling all forms of violence “offensive and destructive”.
Just before Will Smith won the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards held on the 27th, the case began when Comedian Rock took the stage as the presenter for the Best Documentary Feature.
Rock threw a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head on stage. Actress Pinkett Smith has revealed that she shaved her head due to alopecia.
Even now, amid public strife and anger over Rock’s jokes and Smith’s response, Pinkett Smith wrote on her Instagram account, “It’s the season of healing, and I’m writing today for that.”
Rock, meanwhile, has not yet made a public statement about the events at the Academy Awards or about Smith’s official apology.
But this incident seems to have boosted ticket sales for rock comedy shows.
Ticpick, a live ticketing site, said on the 28th that Rock’s comedy show ticket sales were higher than the combined sales of the past month.
A Tikpick spokesperson said in an interview with CBS that the ticket price for a rock comedy show scheduled in Boston on the 30th has risen from $46 (about 50,000 won) to $411.
Tickets for this rock tour started selling a month ago, but more than half of the tickets sold so far have been sold after this incident. A whopping 88% of the tickets sold on Tikpick were sold last weekend right after the incident.
At the Best Actor Awards ceremony following the incident, Smith won his first Oscar for his role as the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams in the movie ‘King Richards’.
Smith, with tears in his eyes, said that Richard Williams, played by him, was “a man who was fiercely protective of his family.”
Williams also criticized Smith for the incident on the 28th, expressing surprise that the incident occurred itself.
Williams told NBC through his son Tsavoita Lessein that “violence is unacceptable unless it is in self-defense.”
