Jada Pinkett Smith Appears To Laugh After Will Smith Slap [Video]; Netizens React

A newly surfaced video seemingly shows Jada Pinkett Smith's reaction after her husband Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at Sunday's Academy Awards.

During the Oscars live broadcast, Pinkett Smith, who lives with alopecia, was seen rolling her eyes at Rock's joke about her shaved head. Her husband, who was sitting next to her, initially appeared to laugh at the comedian's joke before storming the stage and smacking Rock across the face.

A new video — recorded by a member of the Oscars 2022 audience sitting a few rows from the stage and subsequently shared to TikTok — appeared to show Pinkett Smith, whose face is not visible in the footage, laughing as her husband returned to his seat while Rock said, "Wow, Will Smith just smacked the s–t out of me."

Others in the audience also laughed at that point as many initially thought the slap was a staged routine.

When Smith yelled, "Keep my wife's name out of your f–king mouth," Pinkett Smith did not appear to have any reaction, but she seemed to chuckle when Rock referred to the incident as "the greatest night in the history of television."

A number of social media users were surprised and confused by Pinkett Smith's reaction, with one writing: "Jada is still laughing. I thought she was offended."

"Wait … she was laughing after???????" a second user commented. "So Jada sits there and laughs afterward … Wow!!" another wrote.

Others chimed in to criticize Pinkett Smith, with one person commenting: "Jada did nothing to defuse the situation. She could have attempted to calm Will down."

"She didn’t even try to de-escalate it," another wrote.

"I'm a Black woman and it's the things she didn't say or do that placed the blame on her. If you watch the video, you'll see that Will found it funny at first, and then he looked at her and she was upset and he then did exactly what she wanted him to do. She's just toxic to him," one person claimed on Twitter.

But some came to Pinkett Smith's defense, suggesting that she may have also thought it was staged and insisting that she should not be blamed for her husband's outburst.

"Jada [was] laughing because she didn't know it was real. [It] became apparent that it was after Will yelled," one user commented.

"Explain to me how one man makes an offensive joke, another man commits an assault, but somehow this is all the fault of the woman sitting quietly in her seat," another wrote.

"Here we are shaming a woman for men's actions," another commented.

During the Sunday ceremony, Smith apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the audience while delivering an emotional acceptance speech after winning best actor, without mentioning Rock by name. However, on Monday, he issued a public apology to the comedian via Instagram.

"I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong," Smith wrote. "I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness."

Pinkett Smith broke her silence on the Oscars incident Tuesday by sharing a quote about "healing" on Instagram.

"This is a season for healing and I'm here for it," her post read.

The Academy has condemned Smith's actions and launched a formal review into the incident to determine the consequences of breaking its code of conduct. The organization said Wednesday that it asked the "Ali" actor to leave the Oscars after the slap, but he refused.

"Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated," the Academy told the Associated Press. "While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently."