Last night, the internet erupted after Will Smith slapped the shit out of Chris Rock at the Oscars. After everyone got over the initial shock that they had no idea the Oscars were even on television, Will Smith’s alleged outburst was plastered all over the internet.

Hell, I even wrote an article about it here on The Liberty Line saying how crazy it was that this totally legitimate slap happened on television and tried to make sense of why Smith would do such a thing. However a mere 24 hours later, upon further review, I regret to inform you that I have now moved over into the “this video is fake camp” and I will gladly explain why below.

Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock (Unedited)

Okay, so what the general public believes is that Chris Rock told a joke about a celebrity that was sitting in the (front row) crowd, like every Oscars host has done since literally the beginning of the Oscars.

Will Smith is pictured laughing at the joke, before taking the stage and slapping Chris Rock across the face. From there, we are supposed to believe that this was some type of emotional moment by Will Smith who lost his composure?

Will Smith literally took about 20 seconds to get up on stage, then had to walk across the stage to get in front of Chris Rock, then he finally slapped him. There had to be a good minute and a half between the point of an emotional reaction to Will Smith actually slapping Chris Rock.

Seems like that emotional moment would have already passed by that point, right?

From there, Smith returned to his seat and the Oscars resumed on schedule, with little-to-no interruptions moving forward. He then won the Academy Award for Best Actor thanks to his performance in King Richard a movie that was about a father fiercely defending his own family.

The award was given out roughly 15 minutes after this incident which is coincidentally when everyone decided to tune into the Oscars after seeing the video of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock all over the internet. Talk about a convenient ratings boost.

Take a closer look at the video

Okay. So if you take a moment and watch the video one more time, and then read the breakdown I just wrote above about how the incident unfolded, things should probably start to feel a bit weird and you should be asking yourself if any of this was actually real. Something seems very strange, right?

Here’s a video of the slap zoomed in courtesy of a random Twitter user:

Will Smith’s hand barely touched Chris Rock. Also, why did Chris Rock have his hands behind his back like he was preparing to be slapped? Hell, it even looks like he was smiling. After all, both of these guys are trained actors and Will Smith has done his fair share of action movies so it should come as no surprise to anyone he would know how to properly slap someone to make it look as real as possible.

Plus, he literally just won the award for being the best actor over the past year of film. So it’s really not hard to believe that this was just another stellar acting job by Will Smith.

Another Twitter user broke the pre-slap down. Check this out.

Clearly, Grand Old Memes are experts in breaking down slaps. I didn’t even have to check sources on this one. Every stage of the slap pointed out above makes perfect sense.

• Weak Throw.
• Sissy Smack.
• No Attempt to Block.
• Bracing for Contact.
• The Point of Contact.
• The Eye Contact.
• The Neck Tucked.

What are we doing here people? How many times are we going to continue to fall for these ridiculous set ups from the Hollywood elite? They are laughing at us.

Oh, and Will Smith had no problem partying at Vanity Fair’s after party.

Maybe I’m just so caught up in the age of misinformation and disinformation that I can’t tell what’s real or fake anymore. That could very well be the case. Or maybe, just maybe, this is simply another example of Hollywood creating something out of nothing to drive ratings up on a failing awards show.

But hey, credit to The Academy for pulling off one of the greatest stunts in television history. Maybe this will keep people interested and they should turn more award shows into all out wrestling shows.