The Academy May Have A More Difficult Choice To Make About Will Smith Than We Thought
There's no doubt that the infamous Will Smith and Chris Rock incident at the Academy Awards will go down in pop culture history. While presenting the award for best documentary, Rock aimed a few jokes at famous members of the audience, but his jab at Jada Pinkett Smith's hair set Will off. He stormed on stage and smacked Rock in the face, sending shockwaves throughout Hollywood that are still being felt nearly two weeks later. For starters, seemingly every person with an ounce of celebrity from Lamar Odom to Tiffany Haddish continues to weigh in on the matter, voicing their support for either Rock or Smith. Then, after Zoe Kravitz and Jim Carrey chimed in their disapproval of Will, the internet flipped a switch and they were called out for their previous questionable behavior. Interestingly enough, Rock's comedy career also seems to be better than ever.
Despite Will's shocking behavior, he went on to win the award for best actor less than an hour after the slap. However, the Academy is still trying to decide whether or not to strip him of his Oscar, and it looks like the decision is proving to be a difficult one.
The Academy is split on Will Smith's Oscar award
Since the notorious incident, Will Smith beat the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to the punch by resigning. "My actions at the 94th Academy Awards presentation were shocking, painful, and inexcusable," he wrote in a statement, per Deadline. But the Academy's Board of Governors still has to decide what to do about the actor's award. At first, the board said Smith would have 15 days' notice of a vote on his actions, but now that he's officially resigned, the board moved up their meeting to April 8 to decide any disciplinary actions, according to Deadline. Well, the day has come to make a decision and it seems like the Academy is at a standstill.
According to a source from The Sun, the 54 board members of the Academy were "almost entirely split." The source told The Sun, "The decision was made earlier this week to expedite the hearing in the wake of Will's resignation, and during that call it was clear that the decision would go to the wire." They continued, "The members — of which there are over 9,000, with hundreds of WhatsApp groups flying about — are completely split." The source also added that there's some hesitation to rescind Smith's Oscar since sexual predators Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanksi have not been stripped of their awards. For now, we'll have to wait and see what the Academy decides to do.