‘That Was a Horrific Night’: Will Smith Reflects on How He ‘Lost It’ at the Oscars in First TV Interview Since The Slap

Will Smith fessed up to the “horrific night” he had in his first televised interview about when he infamously slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Smith joined Trevor Noah on The Daily Show Monday night to talk about his upcoming historical drama: Emancipation. In due course, the two wound up discussing how Smith has kept a low profile since March, ever since he slapped Rock on stage at the award show after the comedian poked fun of Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss condition.

Reflecting on the incident and the backlash that followed after, Smith said, “that was a horrific night, as you can imagine.”

“There’s many nuances and complexities to it. but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know? And I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody’s going through,” Smith said. “You just don’t know what is going on with people, and I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all. You are asking, what did I learn? It’s that we’ve just got to be nice to each other.”

Smith’s reflection was met with sympathy from Noah, who recalled how Smith was crucified by the public over the slap. Noah described the incident as “f*cked up,” but he also called it a “human” moment from Smith, said some people overreacted to the slap, and he argued that Smith shouldn’t be ostracized forever because of it.

“That’s not who I want to be,” Smith said. This met a response from Noah “I also think that’s not who you are. I think everyone can make a mistake.”

The interview continued with Smith looking back on the slap by saying, “I understand how shocking that was for people…That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time.” This comes after a previous interview in which Smith said he understands people may not see Emancipation if they’re not ready to forgive him yet.

Watch above via Comedy Central.