Judd Apatow's Message to Will Smith Resurfaces One Year After Oscars Slap

Judd Apatow's strong take on the 2022 Oscars slap is being mocked again online almost one year after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock.

While the 2023 Academy Awards took place without incident on Sunday, many people have looked back on last year's event when the infamous moment happened. After Rock told a joke about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, Smith walked on stage and slapped Rock across the face.

Social media lit up with reactions from viewers, celebrities and comedians at the time, Apatow said Smith "could have killed" Rock, in a tweet that he soon deleted. He was mocked at the time, but the tweet lives in infamy almost as much as the slap itself, and it resurfaced online in the build-up to the anniversary.

"He could have killed him," Apatow wrote on Twitter shortly after the incident. "That's pure out of control rage and violence. They've heard a million jokes about them in the last three decades. They are not freshman in the world of Hollywood and comedy. He lost his mind."

He added in a second, also deleted tweet: "Seems like Will Smith's plan to get comedians and the world to not make jokes about him is not going to pan out. The Williams family must be furious. Pure narcissism."

His stance was criticized and mocked at the time, but a year on, Twitter users are once again choosing to see the lighter side.

"It's been a year and this is still the funniest thing anyone said about it," @CosmonautMarcus wrote on Twitter, getting over 637,000 views on their tweet.

"Judd, you know it wasn't that bad," Twitter Blue subscriber Kyle Corbett wrote in response to the resurfaced take by Apatow. Others in the comment section continued to razz on Apatow, sharing memes and jokes of incredulity.

@Wingnut1847 shared a picture of a monster from the video game series Left 4 Dead and wrote: "Will Smith according to Judd Apatow."

Another hyperbolic take was resurfaced by @SenorSwirls in the comment section, highlighting another since-deleted tweet by @dremilyportermd, an account seemingly belonging to a Dr. Emily Porter.

"Just a reminder that if Will Smith has slapped Betty White for a joke she made (however insensitive), she easily could've fallen backward, cracked her skull and died of a brain bleed," Porter wrote the day after the Smith slap. "Same with Bob Saget obviously. Violence is NEVER okay. I'm team #takeitback." Her reference to comedian Saget was in relation to his cause of death, which was blunt head trauma.

While hosting the 95th Academy Awards, Jimmy Kimmel addressed last year's slap. The 94th Academy Awards were hosted on March 27, 2022, so while we're not quite yet at the anniversary, the recent Oscars have got people reflecting on almost a year since the incident.

Smith has apologized for his actions twice, once in the days following the Oscars, and another in July 2022 when he returned to social media. Rock didn't address the incident much publicly for a year until his recent Netflix stand-up special where he went in on Smith.