The 94th Academy Awards was a night few will forget.
Among the controversies leading up to the night—including the snub of an actor in a film nominated multiple times—no one could have predicted the one everybody would be talking about.
Not unless you’re a Twitter user from 2016.
The Will Smith slaps Chris Rock incident seemed to come from nowhere, yet one internet user tried to warn us.
However, his prescience went unheeded.
Will Smith has to punch Chris Rock in the face .... He has no choice— J A S O N (@J A S O N) 1456710348
Well\u2026https://twitter.com/_ja_s_on_/status/704120354055319552\u00a0\u2026— J A S O N (@J A S O N) 1648437544
At the Oscars this year, Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia.
Will Smith walked up on stage, slapped Rock across the face and returned to his seat. When Rock responded with confusion, Smith told him with slightly more profane languge to not joke about his wife.
It all seemed so unpredictable, so how did Twitter user @_ja_s_on_ know what would happen?
The tweet seemed to impress a lot of people.
Please whathttps://twitter.com/_ja_s_on_/status/704120354055319552\u00a0\u2026— Sue Sylvester apologist (@Sue Sylvester apologist) 1648448130
pic.twitter.com/9c3nvYIbbK— kyambadde Joseph (@kyambadde Joseph) 1648445335
Seeing the date on this tweetpic.twitter.com/mIR18OfEXG— HARD FACTOR (@HARD FACTOR) 1648439836
I mean it should be thispic.twitter.com/xP1aTYJuD9— The \ud83d\udc1d Disco \ud83d\udc1d Rangers (@The \ud83d\udc1d Disco \ud83d\udc1d Rangers) 1648440432
Shows how much self control the man has...— Roz Under Pressure (@Roz Under Pressure) 1648451917
As great as it would be, @_ja_s_on_ is not a prophet nor fortune teller.
He was just reacting to the news of the time. Which as we’ve recently learned is the start of this feud between Smith and Rock.
In 2016, at the time of @_ja_s_on_’s tweet, Jada Pinkett Smith was boycotting the Academy Awards due to a lack of diversity in nominees. The movement was called “Oscars so white”.
Rock hosted the awards that year, taking a jab at Pinkett Smith’s activism in his opening monologue.
He said:
“Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties. I wasn't invited.”
The tweet, from some random internet user reacting to this takes on a new meaning after six years to stew.
But @_ja_s_on_ knows the truth.
So far reference, I was referring to Chris Rock\u2019s monologue at the 2016 #Oscars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql54DPd44TQ\u00a0\u2026 #HabitualLineStepper— J A S O N (@J A S O N) 1648442444
And it gave the internet a chuckle among all the think pieces being written about the incident.
Need him to manifest Dua Lipa as my gf fr— Ibrahim Khan (@Ibrahim Khan) 1648440866
Put a half-billion people at a half-billion Twitter keyboards and eventually they'll predict everything.https://twitter.com/_ja_s_on_/status/704120354055319552\u00a0\u2026— Philip Bump (@Philip Bump) 1648469201
Finna take 6 years for it to hit though— Tyler (@Tyler) 1648441149
Dm me what stocks I should buy— MrBeast (@MrBeast) 1648475231
Get this man a job as a scriptwriter for The Simpsons.pic.twitter.com/GdcExgZ7Xd— ge\u2022rawr\u2022d hubby ear (@ge\u2022rawr\u2022d hubby ear) 1648488471
Smith has since apologized to Rock in an internet post on his Instagram page.
That hasn’t stopped others from condemning him.
Despite winning his first Oscar for portraying him, Richard Williams, the father of tennis champions Serena and Venus Williams, did not appreciate what Smith had done.
