Will Smith resigns from Motion Picture Academy.. 'My Actions Were Painful And Inexcusable'

[Duncan Grant]

23. "Chris was keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs," he (Packer) said.

Mr. Packer said that Mr. Smith reached out and apologized to him the morning after the Oscars. And he praised Mr. Rock for having kept his cool. “Chris was keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs,” he said.

“I’ve never felt so immediately devastated,” Mr. Packer said of the incident.

Asked if, after hearing Mr. Smith’s acceptance speech, he wished that the actor had left the ceremony, Mr. Packer said that he did, noting that Mr. Smith had not used his remarks to express real contrition and apologize to Mr. Rock.

“If he wasn’t going to give that speech which made it truly better, then yes, yes,” Mr. Packer said when asked if he wished Mr. Smith had left the ceremony. “Because now you don’t have the optics of somebody who committed this act, didn’t nail it in terms of a conciliatory acceptance speech in that moment, who then continued to be in the room.” —David Packer “ Will Smith Resigns From Academy After Slapping Chris Rock at Oscars’’ (New York Times, accessed 4/1/22)