OSCARS slap film star Will Smith wept this week as he told how his nephew asked him, “why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?”.
The Hollywood actor gave a grovelling interview on Monday night as he opened up about storming on stage and hitting host Chris Rock.
Smith, 54, blamed “bottled up rage” for his “horrific decision” after comedian Rock, 57, made a jibe about the shaved head of Will’s wife Jada, 51, who suffers with the hair loss condition alopecia.
But Smith admitted the emotion of the shocking incident at March’s ceremony only hit him when he was confronted by his young nephew.
He explained: “My nephew Dom is nine and he’s the sweetest little boy.
“We came home and he had stayed up late to see his Uncle Will, and we’re sitting in my kitchen, and he’s on my lap and he’s holding the Oscar, and he’s just like, ‘why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?’.”
Smith dabbed his eyes with a tissue during the appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and joked: “Dammit. Why are you trying to Oprah me?”
Speaking about the ceremony, where he won his first Oscar — being named Best Actor for King Richard, he explained: “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.
“I understand how shocking that was for people. I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled up for a really long time.”
The interview on Comedy Central’s late-night talk show was the first time Smith had been publicly challenged about the attack.
In his autobiography titled Will, released last year, Smith recounted his experiences growing up in an abusive household where he saw his father attacking his mother — which he believes was a factor in the shock slap.
Quizzed on what caused him to lash out, he continued: “It was a lot of things.
“It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know?
“All of that just bubbled up in that moment.
“That’s not who I want to be.” Smith went on to insist that there were other factors at play behind the scenes, but didn’t disclose what those were.
He said: “I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody’s going through.
“I was going through something that night, not that that justifies my behaviour at all.
“You asked me what did I learn? And it’s that we’ve just got to be nice to each other.
“It’s hard and I guess the thing that was most painful for me is that I took my hurt and made it hurt for other people. I understood that they say hurt people hurt people.”
Smith’s new film Emancipation is out on Apple TV+ on December 9, making it eligible for the Oscars, due to take place on March 12.
He plays a whipped slave who escapes from a plantation.
Smith is banned from attending the Oscars for the next decade and has also resigned from the Academy, which organises the ceremony.
