Late-night hosts had a field day addressing the “slap heard around the world,” using their opening to lay into Will Smith for slapping Chris Rock at Sunday night’s Academy Awards over a joke the comedian made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
“Welcome one and all to The Late Show,” host Stephen Colbert began. “It’s Monday, unless you’re Chris Rock, because I’m pretty sure he got slapped into next week.”
“That’s the worst thing Will Smith has ever done. Wait, I forgot about Wild, Wild West,” the host of CBS’ late-night talker added.
“It’s now a part of our lives forever. We will never stop talking about this,” said Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!. “Even Kanye [West] was like, ‘You went on stage and did what at an awards show?’”
Kimmel, a two-time Oscar host, went on to praise Rock’s handling of the situation, noting he “didn’t even flinch. I would’ve been crying so hard.”
“No one did anything. Nobody lifted a finger. Spider-Man was there. Aquaman was there. Catwoman, all sitting on their hands. Nobody helped Chris Rock,” he joked.
Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, chose a more subtle approach, not mentioning Smith and Rock by name. Instead he quipped, “America may be divided, but it was kind of nice for us to come together to say ‘holy crap’ at the same time.”
“The 94th Academy Awards were held last night and featured the first live performance of ‘We Don’t Talk about Bruno’ from the Disney musical Encanto, followed by an unbelievable live performance of ‘We don’t Talk about Jada,"” Seth Meyers joked in his Late Night monologue, while The Late Late Show’s James Corden expressed the same sentiment in a musical number that warned his joke writers, “We don’t talk about Jada.”
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