The popularity of the actor Will Smith saw a dramatic decline following his assault on Chris Rock earlier this year, a new survey suggests.
According to data provided to industry magazine Variety by Q Scores – a widely recognised quantifier of star power and appeal – Smith’s ratings were significantly impacted by his slapping Rock live on TV during the Oscars ceremony earlier this year.
About an hour before he won the best actor award for his role in King Richard, Smith, 53, took offence to a joke made by presenter Rock, 57, about Smith’s wife’s short hair. It is still unknown whether Rock was unaware of Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia.
Q Scores compile their data by polling some 1,800 US consumers about their feelings about celebrities, twice a year. Smith had long enjoyed high rankings, consistently placing in the Top 10 positively rated actors, alongside the likes of Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.
But between the January and July 2022 polls, Smith’s score went from a 39 to a 24 – the number indicates the percentage of those surveyed who had both heard of Smith and counted him as one of their favourite personalities. Such a fall was described by Henry Schafer, executive vice president of Q Score as “a very significant and precipitous decline”.
Smith’s negative rating went up from less than 10 to 26 (the average score is about 16 or 17). Pinkett Smith’s ratings were also significantly affected: her positive rating fell from 13 to six, and her negative score jumped from 29 to 44.
Rock’s scores remained consistent, with positive at 20 and negative at 14, but his awareness rating grew from 66 to 84. The comedian has not yet spoken about the incident.
Smith apologised for his behaviour the day after the Oscars and resigned from membership of the Academy later that week. A fortnight afterwards, the Academy banned him from the Oscars for a decade.
The actor was then silent until late July, when he again apologised to Rock and his family, as well as to the winners of the best documentary prize, whose moment in the spotlight was overshadowed by the drama immediately preceding that award.
“There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment,” Smith said in the video. “There’s no part of me that thinks that’s the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insults.”
Smith’s popularity decline was most marked among women and non-Black respondents, although still not as marked as that seen for Tiger Woods in the wake of his 2009 infidelity revelations.
Johnny Depp’s scores remained consistently high, at 35 on the popularity index, despite allegations of domestic abuse and his recent defamation trial.
Smith’s next film is the Apple original movie Emancipation, in which he plays a real-life slave who escapes from a Louisiana plantation, and whose experiences informed much abolitionist campaigning.
The film had been positioned as an awards contender for the 2023 Oscars, but its release is currently on hold.
