Months have passed, but the events of this year’s Oscar night are still being discussed. The slap heard all over the world when Will Smith hit Chris Rock has not disappeared yet and is unlikely to disappear from conversations in the near future. And while Wanda Sykes, who hosted the show that night, seems to be hinting that she’s unlikely to host the show again, it doesn’t really seem like the slap is a serious reason.
Wanda Sykes wasn’t shy about expressing her opinion about the slap incident. Sykes has previously stated that she was “traumatized” by the whole affair. However, in a recent appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” the comedian explained that although she was once honored to host the show, now she’s done it and doesn’t feel much need to do it again. Sykes explained…
Oh, hell, no. I shouldn’t say that. You know what, it was an amazing honor, and I think that’s what you want to do. You do it once. I do not know if I would like to do it again. It’s a huge job and it took a lot of people to clean me up.
It may be bad news for Oscar that Wanda Sykes doesn’t want to come back. In the past, getting a host for the Oscars was such a chore that the show went a couple of years without a host until this year’s show, where Sykes was joined by co-hosts Amy Schumer and Regina Hall. Sykes’ hint that all of this would probably still have taken place even if Will Smith, who won the Best Actor award that night, hadn’t slapped the host in the face. It was a moment that the whole world was talking about, because none of us could believe that we had actually seen it. Some initially thought it was part of the show. When it became clear that this was not the case, it became very uncomfortable.
While some celebrities like Tyler Perry have at least tried to understand things from Will Smith’s point of view, everyone agrees that Smith’s actions were the most wrong. Eventually, the Academy banned Smith from attending the Oscar ceremony, but Sykes previously said she didn’t think Smith should have been allowed to continue attending the show, and she’s still surprised that the show just went on. She continued…
Was it like what was going on? Shocking. I couldn’t believe it, in shock. And then there was something like, “Okay, so everyone’s just going to sit here?” The show continued. And I’d look behind the curtain like, “Is he still sitting here?”
Assuming that someone is hosting an Oscar ceremony next year, you can be sure that they will joke about people getting slapped on stage, if only to touch on a topic that everyone in the audience will probably still be thinking about.
