The “Saturday Night Live” cold open may have danced around Will Smith’s Oscar antics, but Weekend Update certainly did not. Hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che didn’t hold back, tearing into the actor for slapping Chris Rock on stage.
They also didn’t waste any time. The anchors kicked things off with jokes about the slap, with Michael Che arguing that, with as much as the public knows about the Smiths’ personal life, it was unfair to expect Chris Rock to remember she has alopecia.
“During his acceptance speech, Will Smith said love will make you do crazy things. You know what else makes you do crazy things? Crazy,” Che said. “But I understand where Will’s coming from. I mean, you can’t expect him to sit there and watch another man jump all over his wife — without signing an NDA.”
You can watch part of the discussion on Will Smith during “Weekend Update” in the video below.
The hosts used the incident to bookend the newscast this week, taking the last few minutes of “Weekend Update” to bring out Kenan Thompson as OJ Simpson, to weigh in on what happened.
“You know me, I hate conflict,” the fake Simpson said cheekily. He continued, “They both seem like good guys but honestly, I ain’t even understand Chris Rock’s joke.”
When Che explained to him that “G.I. Jane” was a popular movie in 1997, Simpson immediately explained why he didn’t recognize it. “The 90s? Oh I don’t remember nothing from the 90s,” he said.
Speaking to the slap itself, Simpson said that he thinks Smith took things too far.
“In my humble opinion, Will Smith maybe overreacted to Chris Rock’s joke,” he said. “I dont want to say you got rage issues but hey, if the glove fits.”
That said, he also defended the actor, tossing in one more reference to Simpson’s own past while he was at it. “‘Cause like Will Smith said in his speech, love makes you do crazy things — allegedly.”
