There have surely been plenty of times in Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith’s life that it has been awesome to be mistaken for the actor Will Smith. This week was most definitely not one of them, though.
The actor Smith burned social media to the ground on Sunday by walking onstage at the 94th Academy Awards and slapping comedian Chris Rock in one of the most shocking live TV moments in American history. Smith was upset about a joke Rock had just made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and went full “what did the five fingers say to the face?” mode.
The incident made global headlines and also left the Dodgers catcher Smith as collateral damage. The Dodgers’ Smith told Bill Oram of the OC Register that he was getting mistaken mentions on Twitter from people telling him how great it was that he had stood up for Jada Pinkett Smith.
The Oscar incident was made even more surreal when the actor Smith then won the Academy Award for Best Actor and gave a speech … just minutes after slapping Rock on the very same stage. While he did not apologize to Rock in his speech, Smith did so in a public Instagram post on Monday.
As for the Dodgers’ Smith (who coincidentally celebrated his 27th birthday on Monday), his name had made him the subject of memes even before this. But “The Slap Heard Around The World” likely turned the catcher’s Twitter mentions into a living nightmare.
More must-reads: