Will Smith Blames Oscars Outburst On ‘Bottled Rage’ In New Interview

Will Smith appeared on “The Daily Show with Trevor No” and said his slapping of comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars resulted from “bottled rage.”
Will described what lead up to the moment of the slap, saying, “There’s many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know?”
“I was going through something that night, you know?” said Smith. “Not that that justifies my behavior at all… It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That is not who I want to be.”
Will says he is nephew, who is nine, had watched the Oscars and when Smith came home he had to answer why he “slapped that man,” Will told him, “Why are you trying to Oprah me?”