Judd Apatow’s strong take on the 2022 Oscar swatter is once again being mocked online almost a year after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock.
While the 2023 Academy Awards took place on Sunday without incident, many people looked back at last year’s event when the infamous moment happened. After Rock told a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, Smith came onstage and punched Rock in the face.
Social media then lit up with reactions from viewers, celebrities and comedians. Apatow said Smith “could have killed” Rock in a tweet he soon deleted. He was mocked at the time, but the tweet lives in shame almost as much as the slap itself, reappearing online in the run-up to the anniversary.
“He could have killed him,” Apatow wrote on Twitter shortly after the incident. “This is pure out of control anger and violence. You’ve heard a million jokes about her over the last three decades. You are not new to the world of Hollywood and comedy. He’s lost his mind.”
He added in a second tweet, also deleted: “Seems like Will Smith’s plan to get comedians and the world to stop making jokes about him isn’t working out. The Williams family must be furious. Pure narcissism.”
His stance was criticized and ridiculed at the time, but a year later, Twitter users are once again choosing to see the lighter side.
“It’s been a year and this is still the funniest thing anyone has said about it,” wrote @CosmonautMarcus on Twitter, receiving over 637,000 views for his tweet.
“Judd, you know it wasn’t that bad,” Twitter Blue subscriber Kyle Corbett wrote in response to Apatow’s resurfaced attitude. Others in the comments section continued to lash out at Apatow, sharing memes and jokes of disbelief.
@Wingnut1847 shared a picture of a monster from the video game series left 4 Dead and wrote, “Will Smith according to Judd Apatow.”
Another hyperbolic take was resurfaced by @SenorSwirls in the comments section, highlighting another since-deleted tweet from @demilyportermd, an account that appears to be a Dr. Emily Porter owns.
“Just a reminder that if Will Smith slapped Betty White for a joke she made (however insensitive) she could easily have fallen backwards, fractured her skull and died of a brain hemorrhage.” , Porter wrote the day after Smith slapped him. “The same goes for Bob Saget, of course. Violence is NEVER okay. I’m team #takeitback.” Her reference to comedian Saget was in reference to his cause of death, which was blunt head trauma.
During the hosting of the 95th Academy Awards, Jimmy Kimmel opened up about last year’s slap in the face. The 94th Academy Awards took place on March 27, 2022. While we’re not quite on the anniversary yet, the recent Oscars have got people reflecting on almost a year since the incident.
Smith has twice apologized for his actions, once in the days after the Oscars and again in July 2022 when he returned to social media. Rock didn’t publicly address the incident for a year, until his final Netflix stand-up special, in which he addressed Smith.
