'[Chris] Rock has made it clear that he does not want to make a bad situation worse,' the show producer said in his first post-Oscars interview to 'Good Morning America' on Friday, where he discussed Smith slapping Rock onstage and the evolving fallout.
Packer, speaking to T.J. Holmes, confirmed that the joke Rock made about Jada Pinkett Smith that sparked Smith to take the stage was unscripted.
“He didn’t tell one of the planned jokes. He was immediately freestyling,” says Packer of Rock. But Packer wasn’t concerned. Even when he saw Smith take the stage, Packer says he, like everyone in the audience, assumed it was a bit. “Once I saw Will yelling at the stage with such vitriol, my heart dropped. And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh no, oh no. Not like this,'” recalls Packer. “Chris was keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs. My heart was just in my stomach because of everything about it and what it represented and what it looked like and who was involved. All of that. I’ve never felt so immediately devastated like I did in that moment.
When Rock walked off stage after the best documentary category presentation , Packer confirmed with Rock that Smith really hit him.Packer says that once he confirmed the physical assault, Rock insisted to him that he was fine. The LAPD came into Packer’s office and were “laying out very clearly what Chris’ rights are. They were saying: This is battery. We will go get him. We’re prepared. We’re prepared to get him right now. You can press charges. We’ll arrest him.
But Packer says Rock was being “very dismissive” of those options, reiterating he was fine. “Even to the point where I said, ‘Rock, let him finish.'”
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