Joe Scarborough Ridicules Concern for Will Smith After Slapping Chris Rock: ‘Hollywood is a Screwed Up Place’

 

“Hollywood is a screwed up place,” said Joe Scarborough, which is trenchant commentary following the weird dust-up during Sunday’s Academy Awards that saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock in the face.

During a series of jokes, Rock made fun of Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett, in particular, her alopecia. Smith did not take the joke well, approached Rock on stage during the broadcast, and slapped the comedian in the face. Some believe it may have been staged, but Smith seemed genuinely upset. “Keep my wife’s name out your f*cking mouth,” he yelled after returning to his seat. He then gave a tearful acceptance speech for the Best Actor award he won for King Richard.

Multiple reports have surfaced how a number of individuals went to comfort Smith, which you can see in the Tweet below by Scott Feinberg.

https://twitter.com/ScottFeinberg/status/1508273120473325573?s=20&t=x69qlDUbab9P9LAA-9u3Lg

This reaction raised Scarborough’s eyebrows seeing as it was Chris Rock who got “hit.” Following a clip of a Smith apologizing for his behavior during his acceptance speech, Mika Brzezinski noted that the Best Actor winner said he was sorry to everyone … but Chris Rock.

“Not only did he not apologize to Chris Rock in that moment, because he assaulted him,” the Morning Joe host noted.  “After we saw all of these clips and stories about people going up to offer Will Smith support, who is offering Chris rock support? Chris Rock told a joke and that’s what has happened in these ceremonies for decades, and he is telling a joke and it is tough enough being a comedian as it is, being up on stage.”

“Everybody goes up to Will Smith, you okay, you okay? No, I think they have that backward,” Scarborough continued. “They need to go up to Chris Rock, ask Chris Rock is he okay.”

“You know, Hollywood is a screwed-up place,” he concluded. “I guess because Will Smith is a big star everybody says, ‘hey, you okay, man? No, no, no, he is not okay. It is obvious he’s not okay. It’s also obvious that the community needs to put its arms around Chris Rock.

Watch above via MSNBC.

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Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.