A viral message of a purported apology by comedian and Oscars host Chris Rock is being shared on social media, in which Rock appears to apologise to Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith and their family for crossing a line at the awards ceremony, where Rock poked fun at Jada's autoimmune condition in a joke, after which Will Smith stormed to the stage and hit Chris Rock.
However, no statement had been issued by Rock in connection to the event, though Will Smith took to Instagram to publicly apologise for the debacle.
We found that the viral statement, being attributed to the comedian, was first penned by a podcast host on Facebook, accompanied by a comment that said, "This is just how I would’ve handled it."
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
First, we looked for news reports for Chris Rock's statement on the incident, but did not come across any.
Next, we checked Rock's verified social media accounts and website for the same, but did not find any post or statement on the Oscars night issue.
On carrying out keyword searches on social media platforms, we saw that the oldest post with the same message was shared by Facebook user 'Cris Cris.'
A comment under the post by the same user stated, "This is just how I would've handled it."
We then took a look at Cris' Twitter profile 'actualcris', where we came across a tweet noting his surprise to how viral the draft of a response to the Oscar altercation was.
We also found several other Facebook posts by the user that referred to the viral post, including one which posed a question as to whether people would research a little and another on the origins of the post.
Further, the user shared a tweet on the statement not being a genuine one from Rock, commenting "Should’ve just rolled with it and hired me to put together an ACTUAL statement."
CHRIS ROCK ADDRESSES INCIDENT, SAYS 'STILL PROCESSING'
While we looked for reports to see whether Rock or his management had addressed the incident or the misattributed statement, we came across a report by American entertainment news portal Variety, which mentioned that Rock had commented on the incident at the beginning of his first comedy show in Boston after the incident.
According to Variety, Rock spoke to the audience and said that he did not have a "bunch of s**t" about the incident and was "still kind of processing what happened."
He went on the say that he would talk about it at some point, and that it would be "serious and funny".
Actor Will Smith took to Instagram to address the debacle, publicly apologising to Rock in a statement, saying that he was out of line and wrong. Noting that he was embarrassed, Smith said that his "actions were not indicative of the man" he wanted to be, denouncing violence.
Clearly, a message going around on social media as Chris Rock's statement on the slapping incident at the Oscars was falsely attributed to the comedian. The message was first drafted by a Facebook user 'Cris Cris,' who had merely penned the note as something they would have done had they been in Rock's place.
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