Michael Bay doesn’t “care” about Will Smith when “babies are getting blown up in Ukraine”
Bad Boys and Bad Boys II director Michael Bay was asked to weigh in on the events of last weekend’s Oscars fiasco surrounding Will Smith. He bluntly refused to be drawn in, asserting, “I don’t really care.”
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, following host Chris Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith took to the stage to slap the comedian in the face.
During Rock’s monologue he gave to present the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, he pointed to Jada – who has long been vocal about her struggles with alopecia – and said: “G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it”. Smith later said in a statement, in which he also formally apologised to Rock, that the joke “was too much for me to bear”.
In an interview with Yahoo earlier this week, Bay was asked to reflect on Smith’s actions. Bay admitted that he hadn’t been watching the Oscars but saw Smith’s assault on Rock after receiving a deluge of texts, Bay said Smith’s actions were “wrong to begin with” before stating, “I don’t really care. Hollywood gets very self-absorbed. There are babies getting blown up in the Ukraine right now. We should be talking about that. I really don’t care.”
Bay added that, like many other people, he initially thought the events were staged. “I’ve worked with him. He’s not that guy. I’ve never seen him lose his cool like that,” he explained. “I thought it was a setup because I saw his smirk. I’ve been on set when Will has screwed with people and joked with people. It was a slap. Not a punch. He’s very good at fighting, he’s trained at that. It’s wrong to begin with. Then I knew the yell [meant] he was mad.”
The Bad Boys movies have grossed more than $400 million worldwide (without adjustment for inflation). The most recent instalment, Bad Boys for Life, was directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, with Bay appearing in a cameo role. While some of Smith’s other projects have been cancelled in the wake of the incident, Bad Boys 4 is set to continue production despite some admitted stalling.
Discussing the slap, Rock said he’s “still kind of processing what happened,” while hosts Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes both said that they were “traumatised.” Denzel Washington, who consoled Smith afterwards, said: “Who are we to condemn? I don’t know all the ins and outs of this situation, but I know the only solution was prayer.”
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