Will Smith apologized to the Academy two days after being slapped at an Oscar

Officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences met with Will Smith via Zoom Tuesday before the board had a meeting emergency call to discuss her investigation into the actor’s attack on Chris Rock on Oscars night.

During the call, Smith, 53, apologized to Academy President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson and acknowledged there would be consequences if Hollywood’s biggest stage was assaulted and the comic slammed during Sunday night’s ceremony. A source told Variety.

The actor also reportedly tried to explain why he rushed Rock, who had just made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldness being caused by alopecia.

Rubin and Hudson said they were “outraged” by the attack in a letter they sent to members of the Academy later that day. The letter said a “formal review” of the incident would take weeks.

After Sunday’s meltdown, Smith received a standing ovation when accepting the Best Actor Oscar for his leading role in tennis drama King Richard, and delivered a rambling speech trying to justify his attack just before.

“Love will make you do crazy things,” he said. “To do what we do, you have to be able to take abuse. You have to be able to get people talking crazy about you. In this business you have to be able to be disrespected by people. And you have to smile, you have to pretend that’s okay.”

A day later, he apologized to Rock on social media.

The academy initially said that was the case asked Smith to leave the galaa statement contradicted by a source shared by Post Oscars producer Will Packer let the actor stay.

The LAPD was poised to arrest Smith on battery charges, but Rock declined to press charges, Packer told ABC’s Good Morning America.