Saturday Night Live dived headlong into the week-long Will Smith controversy in a series of brutally funny sketches.
The American sketch show Saturday Night Live jumped straight into mocking Will Smith after the actor beat comedian Chris Rock on the Oscar stage over a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.
In a sketch, Jerrod Carmichael plays a seat filler at the Oscars, who gets a chance to meet one of his heroes, Will Smith, played by Chris Redd. The two initiate an innocent, friendly conversation, and the drunkard asks Smith for a selfie when the sound of Chris Rock suddenly GI Jane 2 joke about Jada acting.
“Hi, I’ll be right back man,” Smith says, panning out of the picture before making a loud “bang” sound, shocking Carmichael before returning to his seat and continuing the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Smith stops the conversation to shout the now infamous “Keep my wife’s name away from your damn mouth!” He smiles and says, “Man, I love the Oscars, man,” to the filler, before shouting the phrase again.
Another seat filler, Kyle Mooney, then sits down after a walk in the bathroom, after missing the bib.
“Oh my God, we’re right next to Will Smith. I have to tweet this. Whoa, and he’s trending,” he says, pulling out his phone and apparently looking at the clip. “Oh my god,” he says in horror.
Smith tries to present himself and continue the casual conversation, but both fillers are clearly scared of the actor.
“Richard Williams was a fierce protector of his family,” Smith suddenly shouts, referring to the role he played that won him an Oscar for best male lead. “I will say that in my speech, man,” he says to the seat-fillers.
In his opening monologue, Carmichael, a stand-up comedian, joked about how the controversy surrounding the slap is everywhere.
“Isn’t it a little crazy – it feels like we’ve been talking about it for so long,” he said. “This is going to blow your mind – can you believe six days have passed? This happened a week ago. Does not it feel like it happened many years ago? Does it not feel like it happened when we all went to high school?
“It happened last Sunday. It’s Saturday, brother.”
“But on Friday, I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever talk about it again. So Lorne [Michaels] came into my dressing room. He said, ‘I think you should talk about it.’ He said the nation needs healing, ”he said to laughter from the crowd.
That Weekend update the duo of Michael Che and Colin Jost could not help but joke about it and spent almost five minutes of their segment on the event.
Jost, who is married to actress Scarlett Johansson, who has been nominated for two Oscars, joked that the slap could have personal consequences.
“Will Smith, for those of you who do not know, went on stage during the Oscars and beat Chris Rock after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, which I think was a disgrace that sets a terrible precedent for to have to defend your wife at awards ceremonies, ”he said.
“I think we just have to admit that it’s one of the craziest things we’ll ever see in our lives. It’s really like the Super Bowl wardrobe mistake, but if Janet’s nipple hit Timberlake,” Jost joked.
This story originally appeared on Side Six and is republished here with permission