Will Packer also admits he too thought Will Smith slapping Chris Rock was 'a bit' at first.
Will Packer, producer of the 94th annual Academy Awards, is speaking out nearly a week after Will Smith shocked audiences by storming the stage and slapping Chris Rock across the face after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith.
In an interview with Good Morning America's T.J. Holmes, which aired in full on Friday, Packer said he spoke to Rock just after the incident and asked, "Did he really hit you? And he looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah. I just got took a punch from Muhammad Ali. He was right away in joke mode, but you could tell that he was in complete shock."
Packer, who led the first all-Black production team, told GMA that he did not speak directly to Smith, and he initially thought the slap was staged like many viewers and audience members.
"I thought it was a bit, like everybody else," he said.
Packer recalled being just off-stage when Rock started telling jokes, and revealed that the comedian "didn’t tell one planned joke."
"I thought this was something that Chris and Will were doing on their own," he shared. "I thought it was a bit. … We hadn’t practiced it."
Once it became clear that this was not a bit, Packer said "my heart dropped."
"I remember thinking, ‘Oh no. Not like this.’ … I’ve never felt as immediately devastated as I did in that moment."
As for why Smith was allowed to stay and accept an Oscar for his role in King Richard, to which he earned a standing ovation, Packer said, "The people in that room who stood up stood up for somebody that they knew -- he was a peer, a friend, a brother. He has a three-decades-plus career of being the opposite of what we saw in that moment. These people saw the person that they know and they were hoping that somehow, some way, this was an aberration."
Packer also shared that police were ready to arrest Smith after the incident.
"They were saying, you know, this is battery was the word they use in that moment," Packer recalled. "They said we will go get him; we are prepared. We're prepared to get him right now."
The producer said police told Rock, "You can press charges. We can arrest him. They were laying out the options, and as they were talking, Chris was being very dismissive of those options. He was like, 'No, I'm fine.' He was like, 'No, no, no.'"
On Sunday night, the Los Angeles Police Department released a statement, noting that "investigative entities were aware" of the incident between Rock and Smith at the Oscars, but "the individual involved has declined to file a police report."
"If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report," the statement continued.
The Academy’s Board of Governors is investigating the incident between Smith and Rock, and will discuss potential sanctions for Smith at a meeting later this month.
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