After months of keeping a low profile, Will Smith finally broke his silence on the Oscars slap. The star got incredibly candid in the video he dropped at the end of this past week, acknowledging his actions and apologizing to Chris Rock. The comedian isn’t the only one that Smith is looking to make amends with, though. He also wants to make things right with Rock’s family members, including his brother, Tony. Smith seems to believe that their relationship may now be “irreparable” and, as he shares those sentiments, Tony is busy supporting his older brother.
Will Smith held nothing back when it came to discussing the moment he slapped Chris Rock on stage at this year’s Academy Awards. In the video that he dropped on Instagram and other social media platforms, Smith apologized to Rock’s mother and other members of his family. At this point, the star said that when the televised incident happened, he wasn’t thinking about “how many people got hurt in that moment.” He then went on to address Tony and the friendship they’ve had:
I want to apologize to Chris’ family, specifically Tony Rock. You know, we had a great relationship. You know, Tony Rock was my man, and this is probably irreparable.
Years ago, Tony Rock and Will Smith worked together on the UPN/CW sitcom All of Us, on which Rock was a main cast member. Smith co-created the show with wife Jada Pinkett Smith and served as an EP. As of this writing, Rock has yet to formally respond to the actor’s assertion about their “irreparable” relationship.
Of course, this could be partially due to the fact that the younger Rock sibling has been hyping up his brother. Chris Rock has still been on the comedy grind in the months since the slap, playing at different venues across the country. Right now, Chris is in the middle of his Ego Death tour, which recently stopped in Atlanta. Tony promoted the show (where Chris made a cancel culture-related joke about the King Richard star) on his Instagram stories. You can check out his post down below:
Unlike his brother, Tony Rock has been a bit more vocal about the Oscars incident. Rock admitted that the moment “eats at” him when he watches it, because he’s watching “a loved one being attacked and there’s nothing [he] can do about it.” More recently, Rock evoked Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac while weighing in on the star’s motivations for the slap. He’s not the only member of the family to share thoughts, either, as the Rocks’ mom, Rosalie, spoke out and criticized the Oscar winner for slapping her son.
It doesn’t look like any members of the Rock family are ready to speak with Will Smith at the moment. So Smith, and the public at large, can only wait and see if the damage done to his relationships with Tony and Chris is truly “irreparable.”