Oscars producer responds to Chris Rock’s Netflix special, ‘we’re moving forward’

The 2023 Oscar awards are right around the corner and the Academy’s chief executive has responded to Chris Rock’s critical comments in his latest Netflix special, in which the comedian addressed the moment he was slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars stage.

The infamous moment, which took Hollywood by storm at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, when Smith took the stage and smacked Rock, after he made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.

Ahead of the 95th Academy Awards ceremony, which will be held on Sunday March 12, Bill Kramer said the organisation was “better prepared” to deal with unanticipated events at Sunday’s show, and was “ready to move forward” from the 2022 incident.

Speaking to Deadline, he added, “I think what’s important for us is that we’re moving forward.

“At the Nominees Luncheon... Janet Yang very clearly owned that we, as an Academy, have to be better prepared and have to be much more nimble and clear in our response to things.

“I really want to focus on that.” Kramer added, “I think it’s great that Chris spoke his truth. I can’t speak to the timing of that, but we are ready to move forward.”

Kramer previously said that a “crisis team” would be introduced at this year’s Oscars to mitigate “potential surprises” at the awards show.

Rock, in his stand-up special Selective Outrage, directly took an aim at Smith saying he had taken the hit “like [former boxer Manny] Pacquiao.”

He also accused Pinkett Smith of starting the feud between them, and said that she had hurt her husband “way more than he hurt me” by having an extramarital “entanglement” with rapper August Alsina.