Summary
- Will Smith is making a comeback with an upcoming action film called Sugar Bandits, marking his return to the spotlight after the infamous Oscars slap incident.
- Smith has publicly expressed regret for the incident and admitted to going through something that night, emphasizing the importance of being kind to one another.
- Despite the controversy, Jada Pinkett Smith stood by her husband and the incident actually brought them closer, although she hasn't responded to the news of his new movie yet.
It’s been nearly two years since the infamous slap Will Smith gave to Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, which appears to have stalled his career in the wake of backlash he received following the televised assault. However, according to a new report, Smith is trying to focus on his career in hopes of making a comeback now that the dust has seemingly settled.
Will Smith's Biggest Controversies: Oscars Slap And More
Over the years, Will Smith's controversies have made headlines and have often landed him in big trouble.
Will Smith Is Making His First Movie In Years
As reported by Variety, the 55-year-old actor is set to star in an upcoming action film titled Sugar Bandits, adapted from Chuck Hogan’s 2010 book Devils in Exile. In this movie, he will take on the lead role as Neal Maven, an Iraq War veteran who joins forces with fellow military veterans to dismantle the drug trade in Boston.
This project marks a significant return to the spotlight for Will Smith since his involvement in the 2022 movie Emancipation alongside Antoine Fuqua (as well as the tumultuous incident at the Academy Awards earlier that year).
Will Smith Has Admitted To Regretting The Oscars Slap
In the aftermath of the incident, the Oscar-winning actor publicly expressed remorse multiple times and took the step of resigning from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ahead of a self-imposed 10-year Oscar ban.
"That was a horrific night, as you can imagine," Smith told The Daily Show host Trevor Noah in November 2022. "There's many nuances and complexities to it, but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it. I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody's going through."
"I was going through something that night,” he continued. “And not that that justifies my behavior at all. You're asking what did I learn and it's that we just got to be nice to each other, man. It's hard. And I guess the thing that was most painful for me is that I took my hard and made it hard for other people."
Smith was prompted to slap Rock following a joke the latter made about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Rock's remark, which likened her to "G.I. Jane," aimed to jest about her hair loss stemming from the autoimmune disorder alopecia, albeit it did not land well, especially with Smith.
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"Keep my wife's name out of your f--king mouth," Smith said as he approached the stage to slap Rock, before sitting back in his chair.
In 2023, Jada addressed the controversy, admitting that it brought her closer to Will even though the public’s reaction wasn’t kind to his slap.
"First of all, I was really confused, because as I talk about in the book, Will and I hadn't called each other husband and wife since 2016," she recalled. "I wasn't there as his wife, even though the world didn't know that, right? Because we hadn't been together. And then I was like, 'Oh, Will's in trouble. Something's not right. Something has gone really awry.'”
For now, Pinkett hasn’t responded to the news that Will has signed onto a new movie.
