Bad Boys and Bad Boys II director Michael Bay didn’t want to talk about the Oscar moment everyone has been talking about — but like the rest of us, he found himself doing it anyway.
After initially telling Yahoo! Entertainment he didn’t really care about the buzzworthy moment between Will Smith and Chris Rock, Bay relented.
“First of all, it’s wrong to begin with,” said the filmmaker, who was promoting his new movie Ambulance.
He added, “I don’t really care. Hollywood gets very self-absorbed. There are babies getting blown up in the Ukraine right now. We should be talking about that…”
That said, Bay noted regarding Smith, “I’ve worked with him. He’s not that guy. I’ve never seen him lose his cool like that.”
He also maintained that when he first saw the incident, “I thought it was a setup because I saw his smirk. I’ve been on set when Will has screwed with people and joked with people.”
However, Bay said that when he heard Will yell, he could tell he was really mad.
Bay also seemed to think Smith could have done more damage if he’d wanted to. “Listen, it was a slap. It wasn’t a punch. He’s very good at fighting, he’s trained at that,” the director said, before repeating, “It was wrong.”
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