Whoopi Goldberg is confident that Will Smith’s career “will be fine” after the actor slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
During “The View” on Monday, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts discussed a report suggesting that development on the Oscar winner’s upcoming movies, including Netflix’s “Fast and Loose” and “Bad Boys 4,” has been paused following the controversy on March 27th.
Goldberg, a member of the Academy’s Board of Governors and a former Oscar host, said that she believes his career will make a comeback.
“Some of Will Smith’s future projects are in question,” she said. “The question is, does he have a path back? Yes, of course, he does! He will be fine. He will be back. No worries.”
Her co-host Ana Navarro added that the slap should not “define his career” and nobody should be judged by their “worst moment.”
“This is going to be with him the rest of his life. It’s going to be in his obituary. This is not going away,” Navarro stated. “But should it define his life? Should it define his career? No, absolutely not. So I think Netflix and all those are making a mistake, and I hope they reconsider because we should be able to separate his art from what he did.”
Elsewhere, Smith’s “Bad Boys” director Michael Bay was asked for his reaction while promoting his new film “Ambulance.” He argued there should be more important topics, such as the war in Ukraine, dominating headlines.
“First of all, it’s wrong to begin with. That’s all people are talking about and 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 so I really don’t care,” he declared to Yahoo!,before noting the slap was out of character.
“He’s not that guy. I’ve never seen him lose his cool like that,” Michael Bay said.
Smith has apologized for his “inexcusable and unacceptable” behavior during the Oscars and has resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.