Rob Schneider is still upset about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars.
“Will Smith is a twat,” the conservative actor and comedian said on the “Kyle & Jackie O” morning show in Sydney.
“Will Smith has been hiding the fact of who he really is and it was exposed that night — that he’s really an asshole,” the actor continued.
Schneider argued the slap, which Smith doled out onstage after Rock made an alopecia joke about his wife, was unacceptable, and doubled down when Jackie O said Smith was really nice when she met him in the past.
He claimed he hadn’t been able to say anything about the slap at the time because he was on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences committee tasked with punishing Smith. Smith was ultimately banned from the Oscars for 10 years.
“Will is a douchebag,” he said. “The thing is, that’s how politically correct that Academy is, that they were so cowardly — because if I would’ve done that, they would’ve been hauled out to prison. They were so worried about being racist, they were like, ‘We can’t be.’”
“It’s violence, is what it is,” he went on. “The color of your skin, or your religion, doesn’t matter — if you commit a crime in front of other people, you get hauled out of there.”
Schneider and Rock co-starred in the Adam Sandler comedy, “Grown Ups,” and overlapped as “SNL” cast members for three seasons in the early 1990s.
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The Oscars slap became a cultural touchpoint and birthed wide-ranging conversations about Smith and his marriage, pent-up emotions in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and how even well-liked celebrities like Smith can see their personas fall apart in moments of stress.
Rock used that moment as an integral part of his latest standup special following Smith’s public apology. At least some onlookers on social media have clearly gotten their fill of the discourse, however, and they eviscerated Schneider for joining it.
“Rob Schneider is the a**hole,” wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter. “He’s basing Will being a ‘douche’ simply on the Oscars situation? Get a grip old man. Oh and you would never be on an Oscar stage period, so don’t worry about being hauled out or not.”