The talk of the town at the moment is not the award ceremony of the 94th Academy Awards but the infamous slap of Will Smith to Chris Rock on a scripted joke.
It turns out that this is not the first time the A-lister actor has lost his patience in an awards show.
Old footage from 2012 surfaced where Will Smith can be seen smacking on the face of a man at the red-carpet event of “Men in Black III”
The video shows Will Smith smacking Ukrainian prankster Vitalii Sediuk, who was posing as a reporter coming too close to Will Smith.
Vitalii Sediuk is known for his wild pranks and altercations and there have been many celebrities who got restraining orders against him or got him arrested as he is known to overstep the comic boundary.
In the video, it can be seen that Sediuk reaches out to kiss Will Smith on his cheeks claiming that this is how they greet back in Ukraine.
Will Smith can be seen taken away in the video shoving Sediuk stating “what the hell is your problem, man?” before smacking a slap on his face.
In another clip, Will Smith can be seen joking about the slapping part saying “He tried to kiss me on the mouth … he’s lucky I didn’t sucker-punch him. Oh, I said that on camera — you know it’s all good.”
The slap to the jokester got approval by the fraternity at that time. And there were many who reached out to Smith telling him he did the right thing.
One of them was Jay-Z. Smith confessed that “I get back and I’m pissed that somebody thinks because you’re famous, they get to do whatever they want to do to you, So I’m in my room and I had 10 urgent messages from Jay-Z.”
He further stated that he called Jay-Z and the rapper said “I just saw the video of you slapping the dude in Russia. I just want you to know you’ll never make a better piece of entertainment. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“He said, ‘Me and Bey, we got a show tonight, and we’re thinking about canceling it and just staying in and watching you slap this dude.’” Sediuk has a history of getting arrested and receiving restraining orders for his pranks. Big names like Brad Pitt got a restraining order against him. Still, Sediuk is of the opinion that Smith treated Chris Rock too harshly. He said Smith could have recorded his protest of the joke in a classier manner rather than choosing a violent output.
