Well-known actor Will Smith shocked fellow Academy Award nominees and viewers at home when he took the stage at the 2022 Oscars and punched stand-up comedian Chris Rock in the face. 

   Rock was introducing the award for Best Documentary when he cracked a joke referencing Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss, saying “Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see ya.” The movie G.I. Jane, starring Demi Moore and Anne Bancroft, follows a nearly bald female lieutenant as she goes through a grueling Navy training program. After the joke, the camera panned to Jada Pinkett Smith and she was seen rolling her eyes, clearly unimpressed. 

   Will Smith, Pinkett Smith’s husband, first chuckled at the joke but soon marched up to Rock and punched him. 

   “Oh wow,” Rock said, taken aback by the sudden act of violence. “Will Smith just smacked the —- out of me,” Rock added.

   “Keep my wife’s name out your ——- mouth!” Smith yelled after he took his seat, repeating it after Rock rebutted with “Wow, dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke.”

   “That was the greatest night in the history of television,” Rock went on to say and proceeded to present the award. 

   Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia, or medical baldness, opened up about her struggles with hair loss in 2018 and talked about how terrifying it was when it first began. Since then, she has portrayed her baldness in a positive light, consistently posting on Instagram, showing it off to her 11.8 million followers. 

   According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Rock did not press charges against Smith, and later in the show when Smith was accepting his award for Best Actor, he apologized for his brash actions and expressed that he wanted to be invited back next year.