Talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t resist making a few jokes at Will Smith’s expense while hosting this year’s Academy Awards.
The three-time emcee made several cracks about the infamous moment at last year’s ceremony, in which Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock after making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The shocking incident earned Smith a 10-year suspension from attending the awards ceremony.
Kimmel kicked off the gaffes with the very first line of his Oscars monologue.
“Give me a second, I’ll adjust my danger zone here.”
The three-time host also poked fun at the Academy’s new crisis team, put in place to respond to any mishaps.
“We want you to have fun, feel safe and, most importantly, we want me feel safe. So, we have strict policies in place,” he said.
“If anyone in this theatre commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute long speech,” he added, in reference to Smith’s best actor win.
“But seriously, the Academy has a crisis team in place. If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the show, sit there and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.”
Kimmel also ripped into Smith’s rap music career, referencing his hit 90s track Get Jiggy With It.
“And if any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to ‘get jiggy with it’ — it’s not going to be easy,” he said.
He joked that any troublemakers would need to get past the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Adonis Creed and Guillermo del Toro first.
The camera then panned to director del Toro, before cutting to ‘the other Guillermo’, Kimmel’s late-night side-kick.
“I know he’s cute, but if you even so much as wave at me he’ll beat the Lydia Tár out of you.”
The wise-cracks kept coming as Kimmel welcomed more presenters to the stage.
“Hopefully it goes off without a hitch. Or without Hitch. Put your hands together and then keep them to yourself for Riz Ahmed and Questlove.”
And before the award for documentary short was presented, Kimmel made yet another reference.
“This point in the show kind of makes you miss the slapping a bit, right?”
Kimmel made one final reference to the slap before the broadcast ended.
He thanked the crisis team for its hard work, before Kimmel was filmed walking backstage and flipping the board on a humorous sign.
‘Number of Oscars telecasts without incident’, the sign read, with Kimmel flipping the number over from ‘000’ to ‘001’.
The gag is also a cheeky reference to the Moonlight/La La Land mix-up at the 2017 Oscars, at which Kimmel was also the host.
Tweet from @EMKCork
Kimmel’s roasting of Smith comes just days after comedian Chris Rock opened up about the experience for the first time.
In his Netflix special, Rock called Smith a “b–tch” and a “motherf–ker”, and accused the actor of practicing “selective outrage”.
He also joked that he was slapped so hard that he could still hear Smith’s song Summertime “ringing in my ears”.
