This year’s Oscars featured shocks, sighs and surprises – but all anyone will care about is a slap. The Academy Awards took place on Sunday night (27 March), with films including The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza and Coda battling it out in the big categories.
The biggest story of the night had almost nothing to do with the awards: a shocking altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock sparked by a joke about Smith’s wife Jada. Smith walked up onto the stage and appeared to smack Rock in the face, before shouting at him to not refer to his wife again.
It undoubtedly overshadowed the night as a whole, and notably – about half an hour later – Smith’s win of the Best Actor Oscar for King Richard. Through tears, Smith called himself “a vessel of love” and apologised to the Academy. The LAPD confirmed that Rock is not pressing charges. The Academy said it “does not condone violence of any form”.
Elsewhere, Coda was awarded Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress went to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye,West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress, and Troy Kotsur took home Best Supporting Actor for Coda.
Check out the full list of tonight’s winners here and revisit all of the night’s awards, jokes and developments in our live blog below…
