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The saga of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars continues to take even more twists and turns, with different stories coming out about how the Academy handled the situation. The latest from TMZ suggests the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences lied about asking Smith to leave after the slap, only for him to refuse.
Let's recap the situation.
The night of the Oscars, the Academy put out a tweet about the incident that didn't even mention Smith by name. Then there was a report stating that the Academy wasn't able to come to a decision on Smith before he won Best Actor because of how split up leadership was in the theater. There was also a more forceful denunciation of his actions.
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Wednesday, the Academy claimed they asked Smith to leave but he refused. Now, TMZ reports that while there were heated backstage discussions with the actor's reps after the Oscars slap, he was never asked to leave because Academy officials were split on what to do.
Ultimately, TMZ says, Oscars producer Will Packer went to Smith about 35 minutes after the incident and told him he could stay. Smith then won Best Actor for King Richard just minutes later.
This is all really silly at this point, and who knows what exactly went down. The story is changing seemingly every single day. We do know that Smith put out an apology to Rock, and everybody should move on. It was an ugly situation with both men crossing the line, but it doesn't need to be anything more than that.
