Will Packer

Like many people who watched the encounter that ended with Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage Sunday at the Academy Awards ceremony, Oscars lead ...

Will Packer co-produced the 94th Academy Awards, where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.

The Academy claimed it asked Smith to leave the ceremony but the actor refused, however Variety reported that Smith was never formally asked to exit the event. “It doesn’t make anything that he did right, and doesn’t excuse that behavior at all, but I think that the people in that room who stood up stood up for somebody who they knew, who was a peer, who was a friend, who was a brother, who has a three decades-plus long career of being the opposite of what we saw in that moment. Rock told the audience, “I don’t have a bunch of shit about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I felt like he was going to win and I was hoping that if he stayed he said that.” “I think what many of us were hoping was that he would go on that stage and make it better,” Packer said. I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. “I immediately went to the Academy leadership that was on site and I said, ‘Chris Rock doesn’t want that.’ I said, ‘Rock has made it clear that he does not want to make a bad situation worse.’ That was Chris’ energy. “It couldn’t be made right in that moment, because of what had happened, but I think we were hoping that he would make it better, that he would stand on that stage and say what just happened minutes ago was absolutely and completely wrong [and say], ‘Chris Rock, I’m so sorry, please forgive me.’ That’s what I was hoping for. He was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine.’ And even to the point where I said, ‘Rock, let them finish.’ The LAPD officers finished laying out what his options were and they said, ‘Would you like us to take any action?’ And he said no. “I knew it was clearly a confrontational moment because of what was happening from Will in the audience, but I still wasn’t sure that he actually struck him,” Packer said. He was immediately in joke mode, but you could tell that he was very much still in shock.” Smith was previously nominated for best actor at the Oscars for portraying the legendary boxer in the 2001 film “Ali.” Packer said he thought it was a bit when the slap first happened, saying, “I thought it was part of something that Chris and Will were doing on their own.

“I thought it was a bit, like everybody else,” Packer told Good Morning America in his first public comments since Sunday night's shocker. Smith, shortly before ...

“Because then you don’t have the optics of somebody who committed this act, didn’t nail it in terms of a conciliatory acceptance speech in that moment, who continued to be in that room.” …Rock has made it clear that he didn’t want to make a bad situation worse.” The Academy has taken heat for allowing Smith to not only remain in the theater, but to go onstage and give a rambling, teary acceptance speech. These people saw the person that they know and they were hoping that somehow, some way, this was an aberration.” “I thought this was something that Chris and Will were doing on their own. “I thought it was a bit, like everybody else,” Packer told Good Morning America in his first public comments since Sunday night’s shocker.

Will Packer, left, with Chris Rock backstage during the 94th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times).

“They were laying out the options, and as they were talking, Chris was being very dismissive of those options,” Packer continued. Comedians Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, who co-hosted the telecast with Regina Hall, have since said they were “traumatized” by the incident. But I also don’t mind being transparent and say that this was a very painful moment for me. I don’t feel the need to elucidate that for you. “I thought it was part of something that Chris and Will were doing on their own. “I said, ‘Watch this, he’s gonna kill.’ Because I knew [Rock] had an amazing lineup of jokes that we had — we had them in the [Tele]PrompTer — and ultimately he did not get to one joke. His tone was not angry. The gamble largely paid off, but the Emmy-nominated producer’s bold move, much like the rest of the show, was eclipsed by Smith’s behavior. His tone was not retaliatory. I thought it was a bit. First-time Oscars producer Will Packer has shed more light on the immediate aftermath of that infamous Oscars slap. Pinkett Smith has been open about losing her hair because of the autoimmune disorder alopecia.