Bill Maher Blames 'Toxic Femininity' For Will Smith Oscars Slap
By Kristin Myers on April 2, 2022 at 8:00 AM EDT
On Friday night, Bill Maher stepped up to the bat on HBO’s “Real Time” to give his take on the infamous Oscar slap.
Last Sunday, actor Will Smith shocked the world when he slapped Chris Rock for making fun of his wife’s hair loss condition, known as alopecia. After storming the stage and slapping Rock, Smith sat back down and yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f---ing mouth.” Less than an hour later, the “King Richard” actor was back on stage receiving his first-ever Best Actor Oscar to a standing ovation.
With controversy about who-said-what backstage being splashed across headlines in recent days, there is a lot of confusion surrounding the events of that night. On Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” Maher attempted to unpack the drama surrounding the 94th annual Academy Award ceremony.
Bill Maher’s April Fool’s Joke? Showing Support For Will Smith
Bill Maher started the segment by welcoming his audience, saying, “Thank you all for coming and putting on a brave face.”
He then had some words for Will Smith: “To Will Smith… stay strong and I got your back.” He paused. “April Fools. You’re a d----.”
“I’m not here to humiliate Will Smith,” he added. “He gets enough of that at home.”
Maher continued to address the scandal that Will Smith caused on Sunday, saying, “Every single person in America was talking about the sucker punch heard around the world.” He joked, “That whole ‘Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth’ didn’t really work out.”
Bill Maher Jokes About 'G.I. Jane Oscar Buzz'
He also commented on the brevity of the moment, saying, “There was more action in three seconds than in three hours of ‘The Power of the Dog’,” which ultimately lost to “CODA” in the Best Picture Oscar category.
“Who would have thought that the movie coming out of the Oscars with all the buzz was ‘G.I. Jane,’” he quipped. He also said that Rock’s comment about likening Jada Pinkett Smith to G.I. Jane wasn’t even that bad a joke, saying comparing a woman to Demi Moore “at her hottest” was not a major insult.
“Alopecia is not leukemia,” he said before he went on to blame “toxic femininity” for causing the stir.
He admitted that there were other things that happened in the world this week “but we don’t care about that,” he said.
Bill Maher’s Panelists Weigh In On Will Smith Slap Controversy
Friday night’s panel featured Laura Coates, a CNN Senior Legal Analyst and host of SiriusXM’s “The Laura Coates” show. It also featured Andrew Yang, founder of a new political party called Forward.
Coates, for her part, was incredulous that the “Pursuit of Happiness” actor received a Best Actor Oscar only minutes after he committed “battery” against Chris Rock, which was the term that the LAPD used according to producer Will Packer.
“I thought, ‘Why is he even there to get the award?’” she asked. She also expressed surprise that Smith was allowed to stay at the ceremony, saying that an everyday individual would have at the very least been removed if this had happened at, say, a children’s soccer game.
Yang said that part of the reason that Smith was allowed to stay was that “part of it was he’s Will Smith.” He then admitted, “Anyone else would have been ushered out.”
Maher focused on the celebrities who gave Smith a standing ovation in the audience, saying, “They’re always talking about micro-aggressions” but “suddenly, they were okay with this.” He said that it “showed broken morals” in Hollywood elites.
Maher also said that the Academy Award ceremony itself “represents pandering.” He said that the star-studded award ceremony is “not connected to everyday people.”
Bill Maher Says Oscars Are All About ‘Disability, Gay, Race’
He added that the Oscars focused on “disability, gay, race” and said that it seemed like that was what the Oscars were about this year. He is most likely referring to “CODA” winning all three of its nominations and Troy Kotsur becoming the first Deaf male actor to win an Oscar and the second Deaf actor to do so in the award show’s 94-year history.
Ariana DeBose also became the first openly gay woman of color to pick up an Oscar for her role in the musical film adaption of “West Side Story.”
Maher also mentioned that he had spoken to an “African American” friend at the Vanity Fair after party. Someone had posed the question of what would have happened if Rock had slapped Will Smith back.
“He couldn’t,” Maher’s friend reportedly said. “He had the whole race on his shoulders.”
