I am starting to think the Will Smith Chris Rock thing was fake the reasons are

Oh well, that settles it. The Great and Powerful Snoop Dogg has spoken!

Like all conspiratorial nonsense all this makes sense once you accept that rock and Smith benefit somehow from staging such a ridiculous event. Of course they don't and the whole thing is just stooooooopid.

Some of you are forgetting how crazy someone has to be to be a scientologist.

Very fake. Smith even appears to be smirking on his casual walk back to sit down. If you just sucker smack someone why would you just turn your back on them? Rock could have retaliated, unless it was just a staged moment.

These award shows are hurting for ratings and survival. Time to add in some WWE type acting.

These aren't even real people. This is such a non-story

The fact that this was destructive to Will Smiths career does not prove that it was not staged. People carry out bad ideas all the time you know, like robbing a bank and ending up in jail for it.

What you and I get is the cover story, the spin. You can assume it's true at face value if you want. If the broadcaster could drop the audio via delay then why couldn't the video of the slap have been cut, as well? At least one of the principals involved is heavily warped by fame and Hollywood, possibly both. It doesn't matter whether Rock and Smith ever come clean, the Academy and its broadcast partner have to be pleased with the resulting buzz, something that had been eroding massively over the past decades. Most actors at Smith's level of success ($$$) don't really care about Academy awards except for the ego strokes they might get out of it. Smith will get a slap on the wrist, he got his award so he probably doesn't give a flip what the twitterverse thinks about all of this. His agent and publicist have him on the apology rehab tour so they can take full advantage of the increased visibility this all has brought him. If anything, he's pleased that his name is getting mentioned way more than it was in connection with his movie that won't see much viewership, regardless. His relevance has spiked, that's far better than the middling hum his movie roles have been earning over the past decade. He'll command a higher salary for the next 5+ movies he does, as a result. He (maybe) slapped another grown man, it's not like he was abusing his kids or wife or involved in dog fighting. He'll be forgiven quickly and the twitterverse will move onto another faux outrage in 10 minutes time.

Wow. This thread certainly brought out a lot more strong feelings about this issue than I thought there were. I wonder how many individual posters we actually have.

Just my two cents, I tend to agree with those who point out that, regardless of whether the slap was faked or not, it would be hard to tell just by watching the video. We are talking about professional actors here. Unless you know Chris Rock/Will Smith personally (and even then), I think it would be extremely difficult to tell if they were serious or acting out a part. Also, isn't it possible that just those two (plus Jada) were "in" on the secret, even if the rest of the audience wasn't? That would explain a good bit.

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence and reasons to think it wasn't faked. So to me, the bottom line is: this was free publicity for the Oscars. But honestly, it makes me never want to watch them (not that I ever had before).

Please ban this poster for incessant insults.

Thank you.

At least we all now have a greater awareness of alopecia and might be more willing to seek remedies for the condition.

Street cred. The typical letsrun poster is not the audience Will Smith cares about. It's about respect

A gentleman disagrees with one who has a different opinion with grace and class. I guess we can rule out Flagpole being a gentleman.

Exactly. It's kind of like the street cred Greg gained when he called out Flagpole's piano playing and Flagpole backed down. Greg's credibility went up somewhat and Flagpole became the laughingstock of this website.

Plus slapping is a trending topic these days and has been for a while. Have you noticed more slap competitions lately? I don't want to promote anyone but there are some big names in slapping right now.

Not fake but sad nonetheless

Why would Chris Rock and Will Smith come together to do something that would perpetuate a stereotype in front of the world!

Pole has done a good job of trouncing the insidious slap-deniers here. If he maybe went a little overboard on the insults, he is to be forgiven in light of his overall efforts.

Keep my Greg's name out of your f#(k;ng mouth!