Will Smith Has Entered Rehab After Career-Derailing Moment
Well that should solve everything.
This article is more than 2 years old
Two weeks out, the saga of the Slap Heard ‘Round The World continues. Jim Carrey, Amy Schumer, Billy Crystal, and everyone else with a mouth and an Internet connections has aired their opinions over what happened on stage at the 2022 Oscars ceremony. Now that the sharks are circling, Will Smith apparently needs a breather. The actor is allegedly heading to rehab.
That’s the word from the British tabloid The Sun (via Marca). Without naming the facility, The Sun reported that Will Smith is heading to a “high-level retreat” to get professional help handling the stress his slap has placed on his shoulders. It will reportedly be the type of place often used by wealthy celebrities in similar situations, which Smith plans to use for “soul searching and working out how he can move forward.”
Unfortunately, some strategy and “soul searching” on Smith’s part seems to be desperately called for. The wealthy and famous may have given him a standing ovation during his acceptance speech for the Best Actor Oscar, the dawn of the following day brought with it what could very well be the beginning of the end of Smith’s career in entertainment. As Marca notes, production on two upcoming films in which Will Smith had a starring role — Fast and Loose and Bad Boys 4 — have both been put on indefinite hold. At the same time both Paramount and the star of a film Smith was financing, Bounce, have pulled out of the project. Clearly the slap has tarnished the Will Smith brand, and it makes sense if he’s feeling a little stress right now.
More recently, the Academy Awards have finally decided how they will punish Will Smith for the slap. Deadline reports that on Friday the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors has decreed that the Oscar awards will be absent of Will Smith for at least a decade. A letter from the Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson sent out on Friday said that “for a period of 10 years from April 8, 2022, Mr. Smith shall not be permitted to attend any Academy events or programs, in person or virtually, including but not limited to the Academy Awards.” They called the actor’s behavior at the awards ceremony “unacceptable and harmful,” adding that they hope “a time of healing and restoration for all involved and impacted” can begin, and it sounds like that’s exactly what Smith is hoping for as well.
It can be easy and often tempting to brush off the stress of the rich and famous. After all, what’s stress when you’ve got multiple mansion and a swimming pool you can fill with cash? But let’s remember that some people are quite literally trying to convince us that Will Smith’s slap could decide the fate of the world. That is what ufologist Nick Pope is telling people. He’s concerned that visitors from other planets are monitoring our television broadcasts and that Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock will convince those advanced beings to treat us as hostile. Somehow, we think Smith’s actions in Independence Day and the Men in Black movies would have more of an impact on alien outlook, but who knows? Maybe the Martians were just really rooting for Andrew Garfield.
