Will Smith opens up about the Oscars slap in ‘Daily Show’ appearance: ‘That was a horrific night’

Will Smith “lost it” when he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards earlier this year, the West Philly native told host Trevor Noah in an appearance on The Daily Show on Monday.

“That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it, you know, but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it,” Smith said of striking Rock in March.

Smith slapped Rock at the awards ceremony just before he took home an Oscar for Best Actor, after the comedian took a jab at Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith stormed the stage and attacked Rock, telling him to “keep my wife’s name out of your f— mouth.”

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In his first late night appearance since the Oscars slap, Smith said that on the night of the incident, he was “going through something,” and that “you just don’t know what’s going on with people.”

“Not that that justifies my behavior at all,” Smith said. “It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That’s not who I want to be.”

Smith previously addressed his actions in a statement following his interaction with Rock, writing that he “reacted emotionally.” In July, he released a video on his YouTube channel speaking out about the incident again, saying that while he apologized to Rock and his fellow nominees, being sorry “really isn’t sufficient.”

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As Smith told Noah on Monday, the slap also impacted his close family members, including his 9 year old nephew, Dom, who had waited up late to see Smith on the awards show’s broadcast.

“He had stayed up late to see his Uncle Will, and we are sitting in my kitchen and he is on my lap and he is holding the Oscar and he is just like, ‘Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?’” Smith said.

The actor jokingly added that his nephew was trying to “Oprah” him.

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Smith appeared on The Daily Show to promote his upcoming historical drama Emancipation, in which he stars as an escaped enslaved person known today as “Whipped Peter.” The film is based on a true story, and was inspired by a series of photos from 1863 showing the scarring on the man’s back.

“First seeing that image was one of the things that really got me exited to explore this, because you see the image, but you don’t know who he is. You don’t know what the story is,” Smith said.

Emancipation will be in theaters starting Dec. 2, and will be available to stream via Apple TV+ on Dec. 9.