Will Smith gives his statement after the Academy Bans him for a Decade

After the unfortunate incident on the night of the 94th Academy Awards, The Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences sat down on Friday morning to discuss the situation regarding Will Smith and Chris Rock and the Academy voted to ban Smith from every Academy event including the Oscars for a whole long decade.

The 53-year-old Best Actor winner of this year, Will Smith, had accepted the decision made by the Academy. After the decision, Will Smith gave his statement to PEOPLE regarding the Academy decision, saying, “I accept and respect the Academy’s decision,”. The Academy said this Friday,

“The Board of Governors has decided, for a period of 10 years, from April 8, 2022, Mr. Smith shall not be permitted to attend any Academy events or programs in person or virtually, including but not limited to the Academy Awards,”.

But the actor will keep the first Oscar that he earned for his performance in King Richard.

Oscars 2022: What happened between Will Smith and Chrish Rock?

On the 94th Academy Awards’ night, Chris Rock went up to the stage, and as a comedian himself, he started to make some jokes before presenting the best documentary award. While making several jokes about the Oscar attendees, he made a joke about Will’s wife, actor Jada Pinkett Smith. Back in 2016 on Oscar night, he had also made a joke about Will’s wife and this was the second time. Rock said, “Jada, I love you. GI Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,”

While at first, it looked fine since Will was also laughing at the joke, but then the whole crowd went quiet as Will stood up and went up to the stage and slapped Chris Rock on his face. After that, he came to his seat and shouted, “Keep my wife’s name out of your (beep) mouth.” This has already become a huge controversy, and the video of Will smacking Chris Rock went viral on social media. After the following Incident, Rock didn’t file any charges and is yet to make a public statement about the incident. Meanwhile, Will resigned from the Academy last week during a run-up to the meeting.