Is it a publicity tour or an apology tour? Will Smith has a new movie coming out. But in a new interview, the actor is expressing his regret, explaining his rage, and describing what drove him to slap Chris Rock at the Oscars.
That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There are many nuances and complexities to it, but at the end of the day, I lost it. Entertainment reporter Chloe Milos is with us now. He can't put this one to bed even though he's trying to move on.
He's got a new movie coming out. What else is he saying? Well, I mean, nor should he. I mean, there are still so many questions left unanswered on it. And although this is his first Latenight Show appearance since the infamous Oscars slap, we still don't have much more information and we still have never heard from Chris Rock, who has not responded to requests for comments.
But here's a little bit more of what Will Smith told Trevor Noah last night. It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. All of that just bubbled up at that moment.
That's not who I want to be. You've known me for a long time, so you know me personally, so you know, but you all might not know. So he says that that's not who he wants to be, nor what he wants his legacy to be remembered for.
Anna. But he still doesn't explain exactly. Why? What caused him to rush the stage? Was it just what Chris Rock said about Jada Pickett Smith, about her battle with Alopecia? That joke, right?
Was it years of him being portrayed negatively in the media and his marriage being made fun of, which is also something that Trevor Noah brought up last night, we saw still don't have those answers? I think at some point we will get more.
In a way. It's almost like he's being tight-lipped. And I would imagine that maybe there will be some big sit down at some point. But like you said in your intro to me, there is a movie to promote. Emancipation comes out next week on Apple.
It's a massive, massive movie that's getting a lot of award-show buzz. But as we know, Will Smith, although he's eligible to win an Oscar, wouldn't be able to go to the Oscars to accept it or attend the ceremony if he is nominated.
So it feels like he is holding back and is having a hard time answering those tough questions. Thank you so much for going on. I'm wondering what you thought about that and then I'll share a little personal story.
What did you say? I kind of want to hear this story first, but I want to give a little context to this just because of the segment we were left talking about, he is currently promoting a film. The film does take place in sort of the slavery era and there is a kind of wider critical movement of black trauma on the screen, which makes this film just a tiny bit more of a heavy lift to promote the audience that you want to draw to.
It may be a little bit upset with Will Smith right now. The black audience that you may want to bring to it may feel fatigued by even the concept of the film. So the fact that he's out here doing this emotional labor publicly really does talk about the stakes of kind of this genre of work and the black artists who are still doing it and are finding it to be a tougher sell.
Look, not to betray any confidence. You guys know that I know Will Smith and have been. Communicating with him over since it happened. I mean, been communicating with him before, but since it happened, we've been talking.
I met with him and I spoke with him for like an hour, just me and him in the room, sitting down, talking. And again, not to betray any confidence, but what he said on The Daily Show is pretty close to what we talked about.
And it has been a journey for him over the last month. And I feel like he is somewhat of a different person. And I'm sure he will share that when he's ready to share that, he'll share it. But I agree with you that it's going to be a heavy lesson.
I know that he's. Yeah. I'm not saying that to be so focused on the business part of it. I do think he has been apologizing in the era of crummy apologies. This is what apologizing does look like. And the question is now, what does it mean to re-embrace someone of this stature culturally?
We've seen it in other contexts me too, ETCA. Where it gets kind of complicated how people feel about the person's art. This is not that. But it is on that same kind of spectrum of the apology. What happens after the apology?
What does it mean to be forgiven in the cultural sense of it? Can he be reimbursed? That's the question. Can he be reimbursed? And we'll see. TBA. TBDA will. Not be from lack of trying. Yeah.