Jimmy Kimmel makes brutal swipe at Will Smith slap controversy in Oscars speech

Jimmy Kimmel has addressed the elephant in the room at the Oscars, having made an inevitable reference to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at last year’s awards do in his opening monologue.

Watch what he said here:

The 2022 Academy Awards took a dramatic turn when Smith stormed on stage and slapped host Rock after he made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

Smith later apologised for his ‘shocking, painful, and inexcusable’ actions, announcing that he was resigning as a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The actor was also banned from the Oscars for an entire decade, meaning you won’t see him in the audience today – which is probably a good thing, given that Kimmel, 55, made a quip about what happened in his opening monologue.

Noting how there are five Irish actors nominated this year, he added: "Which means the odds of another fight on stage just went way up."

ABC

Kimmel went on to reference Will Smith’s slap further, saying: “We want you to have fun, we want you to be safe and we want me to be safe.

“If any person in this theatre commits an act of violence, you will be awarded best actor and be allowed to give a 19-minute speech.”

He told audiences that, in order to get to him, they would have to go through Michael B Jordan, Michelle Yeoh, Pedro Pascal and his side-kick Guillermo.

Ahead of this year’s big bash, Kimmel also joked about the incident when discussing the colour change of the red carpet, which for 2023 has become a 'champagne' carpet... yep, so essentially just beige.

Kimmel said the carpet – which stretches from the road to the entrance of The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood – was a good sign that we wouldn’t be seeing similar dramas this time.

“People have been asking, is there going to be any trouble this year?” he said on Thursday.

"Is there going to be any violence this year?

"We certainly hope not, but if there is, I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet, rather than a red carpet, shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed."

REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo

The beige - sorry, champagne - carpet was unveiled last week, and it's the first time is six decades that we haven't seen red.

While there have been different hues or shades of red, it hasn't strayed from that type of colour since 1961, according to AP.

The 95th Academy Awards enlisted the help of Lisa Love, a red carpet creative consultant, to refresh the classic carpet idea.

She believes champagne will be soothing to everyone and also won't be an eyesore when compared to the orange tent that is going up above to shield stars from the elements.

According to The New York Times, she said: “The sienna-color tent and champagne-colored carpet was inspired by watching the sunset on a white-sand beach at the ‘golden hour’ with a glass of champagne in hand, evoking calm and peacefulness."