Kevin Hart: Will Smith is in a 'better space' since the slap

Kevin Hart says Will Smith is in a ‘better space’ since fallout over Oscars slap

A man in a black jacket with a white fern stitched on a lapel poses at a movie premiere

July 14, 2022 4:39 PM PT

Four months after Will Smith’s infamous Oscars moment, Kevin Hart has given an update on how the “King Richard” star has dealt with the aftermath.

Smith, of course, walked onstage at the Academy Awards in March and slapped comedian Chris Rock in the face after the best documentary presenter cracked a bad joke. Smith took umbrage with Rock’s joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her hair, which she had shaved due to her struggle with alopecia.

The incident led to Smith resigning from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and being banned from attending the Oscars ceremony — and all other academy events — for the next 10 years.

At the premiere for “DC League of Super-Pets” on Wednesday, Hart spoke with Entertainment Tonight about Smith’s current mind-set.

“Will is apologetic, you know, he’s in a better space, of course, than what he was after,” Hart said. “People are human and as humans sometimes, we make mistakes. So it’s not about talking about the past, it’s about acknowledging the present and doing your best to move forward.”

In the days following the incident, Smith released a statement on Instagram in which he denounced all forms of violence as “poisonous and destructive” and called his actions “unacceptable and inexcusable,” but added that “a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear.”

“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong,” Smith continued. “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”

Hart noted that he is friends with both Smith and Rock and wants the two to reconcile.

“I can get only hope that the two of them find a way to find some solace in that and move past it. I just like good energy. I love to see people be the best,” Hart said. “I still love him, I still love Chris, and, you know, you can’t judge a person by one thing. Ultimately, life goes on and people grow, so give him the opportunity to do so.”

Rock has yet to address the incident at length in public and told a Boston crowd at one of his sold-out stand-up shows in March that he was “still kind of processing what happened.”

After initially keeping relatively quiet about the situation, Pinkett Smith opened up about her thoughts on a June episode of her Facebook Watch series “Red Table Talk.”

“About Oscar night: My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile,” she said. “With the state of the world today, we need them both, and we all actually need one another more than ever.”

Earlier this week, Will Smith’s “Bad Boys” franchise co-star Martin Lawrence told Ebony that the rumors about the franchise’s fourth installment being canceled after the Oscars slap are not true.

“We got one more at least,” Lawrence said.