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At the 2022 Oscar Awards, Will Smith reached a career milestone. He won his first Academy Award for his performance in King Richard. A story based on Richard Williams, the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.
Will Smith Addresses 10-Year Oscars Ban
But most don’t talk about that night being perhaps the highlight of his illustrious career. What most remember about that night is that Smith smacked host Chris Rock. After he joked about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
In the fallout, the Academy slapped Smith with a 10-year ban from the awards. Smith has remained mum about the incident and the ban since it happened. For the first time, he addressed their decision.
“ I am looking to be the best human I can possibly be and I’m gonna take what I get with that,” he said to the Associated Press.
“I’ve taken the last couple of years to do a deep dive on the parts of me that may or may not been in that level of certainty and asking those deep scary internal questions.”
That slap ended up being one of the most viral moments in social media history. But it also came with a lot of criticism. Mainly from his peers in the film industry. Most notably, Jim Carrey, who said that Smith was “living beyond the bandwidth,” and ultimately cracked under pressure.
When asked about Carrey’s comments and others who have been particularly critical of him, Smith said he is just trying to live in his truth.
“There’s a small self that — the small concept of myself – can get to the end of his bandwidth. And then, if I back up, there’s like an infinite space, where my bandwidth is the bandwidth of life itself,” he added.
“It’s like trying to not get stuck in having to be only a narrow band of things, to give myself permission to be wider in the truth of who and what I actually am.”
