In a new interview with PEOPLE, the 36-year-old actress shares both her initial reaction and more 'politically correct' take on the drama at the award-giving event where Will Smith slapped the comedian.
- Mar 31, 2022
AceShowbiz - Raven-Symone weighed in on the drama involving Will Smith and Chris Rock. Speaking with PEOPLE, the "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" star shared both her initial reaction and more "politically correct" take on the matter.
When asked by Senior Correspondent Jeremy Parsons about her reaction to the shocking moment at the 2022 Oscars, Raven exclaimed, "woo, ooh!!" She added, "I mean, I love a meme. Okay?"
As for her "politically correct answer," the "Raven's Home" actress said, "I'm really proud of Will for apologizing and standing up for what he believes in and also telling his truth." She continued, "And here's the one thing I will say, in this industry, a lot of the times, we get the tail end of a long conversation."
"And the tail end will end up in an 'ooh!' moment or a word or something like that, and we take it out of context, and we blow it up," she noted. "We don't know the rest of the story. And knowing that there's a long history and he was defending his woman at the time - of course, there could have been other times to do that -but thank you for making that award show very interesting!"
On Monday, March 28, Will took to Instagram to issue an apology to Chris after he slapped the comedian onstage for joking about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head. "I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris," the "King Richard" actor wrote. "I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness."
As for Chris, he shared that he's still "processing what happened." During his first standup show on Wednesday, the funnyman told the crowd, "I don't have a bunch of s**t about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I'm still kind of processing what happened." He added that he would eventually talk about it later, "So, at some point I'll talk about that s**t. And it will be serious and funny."
