“Transformers” director Michael Bay didn’t follow this year’s Oscars and therefore missed the hustle and bustle of Will Smith’s laudator Chris Rock being slapped on stage. Smith was also awarded Best Actor in a Leading Role that same evening.
Since Bay and Smith had worked together on the Bad Boy films in the past, he had been inundated with requests to comment on the incident.
“First of all, it’s fundamentally wrong,” Bay says while promoting his latest action film, bank robbery thriller Ambulance. “But that’s all people talk about. And I really don’t care. Hollywood is really self-centered. Babies are being blown up in Ukraine right now. We should talk about that.”
Despite this, Bay also had positive things to say about Smith, who is actually considered one of the nicest celebrities in Hollywood. “I worked with him, he’s not that guy,” says Bay, who, like many others, thought the slap was comedy until he saw Smith yell at Rock from his seat. “I’ve never seen him lose his composure like that. I thought it was staged because I saw the grin and I was on set when Will jokes with people.”
Smith has since publicly apologized to Chris Rock for the slap.