Howard Stern blasts Hollywood over Will Smith-Dave Chappelle hypocrisy: ‘They didn’t break Will’s hands, they shook them and it’s wrong’



Howard Stern tore into Hollywood and said that the entertainers are hypocritical in how they handled the incident between Chris Rock and Will Smith when compared to the attack on comedian Dave Chappelle.

A crazed male suspect stormed the stage at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this week and assaulted Chappelle, who was in the middle of a set.

What are the details?

During Wednesday's broadcast of "The Howard Stern Show," the namesake host said that Hollywood showed its true colors in its response to the two incidents.

“This guy jumped up on stage and attacked Dave Chappelle,” Stern said. “As soon as that happened, did they let him go back to his seat and laugh and sit next to his wife and then give them an award? No! They took him backstage, they broke his arms and hands so bad.”

He added, “They f***king beat the s*** out of him!”

Stern pointed out that Hollywood appeared to cater to Smith after he slapped Rock during the Oscars live broadcast.

“Unlike the Academy Awards, Jamie Foxx came running out on stage and helped Dave Chappelle,” Stern continued. “At the Academy Awards, everyone came over and consoled Will Smith — because it was live television and Hollywood didn’t know what to do about Will Smith.”

Hollywood, he fumed, shouldn't have treated Smith any different when compared to Chappelle's attacker, who was later identified as 23-year-old Isaiah Lee. Following the attack, videos showed EMTs transporting Lee — who appeared to have sustained severe injuries as a result of security manhandling him — in an ambulance to a local hospital.

“The audience at the Oscars gave Will Smith a standing ovation after the attack, that’s the truth,” Stern continued, pointing out how "f***ed up" Hollywood is. “It’s on film, it’s not fake news. They didn’t break Will’s hands, they shook them, and it’s wrong.”

“Some people in the audience at the Academy Awards still should be very ashamed of themselves," he insisted. "I hope they are."

Following the slap heard round the world, the Academy banned Smith from its annual ceremony for a period of 10 years.

Earlier during his broadcast, Stern said, "I hate to say it, but I’ve always thought, I told you I used to do live — 'America’s Got Talent.' I always thought it’s these live shows and everything, it’s crazy because people are getting nuttier and nuttier and they’re going to use these opportunities to attack people."

(Content warning: Rough language):

\u201cThey didn\u2019t break Will\u2019s hands, they shook \u2018em.\u201d Howard Stern talks about how \u201cfu*ked up Hollywood\u201d is for not treating Will Smith when he attacked Chris Rock the same way security treated Dave Chappelle\u2019s attacker.pic.twitter.com/9Q4KOIEiUg
— Mike Sington (@Mike Sington) 1651683122
Ya, We’re Gonna Talk About the Will Smith Slap | 3/28/22

Ya, We’re Gonna Talk About the Will Smith Slap | 3/28/22

Bill Maher angers progressives after pointing out 'liberal hypocrisy' in Will Smith slap scandal



Bill Maher ruffled the feathers of progressives in the most recent episode of his HBO talk show. Maher also exposed "liberal hypocrisy" in the reaction to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.

"Bill Maher" was a trending topic on Twitter on Saturday morning as people reacted to statements he made about Jada Pinkett Smith in the wake of Will Smith assaulting Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last Sunday. Many of the online comments regarding the trending topic were from progressives who were angered by Maher's stance.

To start the opening monologue of this week's "Real Time with Bill Maher," the liberal TV host told the audience, "Thank you all for coming and putting on a brave face. To Will Smith: Stay strong and I got your back.”

Maher then waited and said, “April Fools. You’re a d***.”

"I'm not here to humiliate Will Smith. He gets enough of that at home," Maher joked.

"Every single person in America was talking about the sucker punch heard 'round the world," Maher noted before he quipped, "That whole 'Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth' didn’t really work out."

He jested, “Who would have thought the movie coming out of the Oscars with all the buzz was G.I. Jane.”

Maher pointed out that someone comparing your wife to Demi Moore "looking her hottest is not exactly the worst insult I've ever heard in the world."

“I mean, Alopecia, it's not leukemia, okay," Maher stated. "Alopecia is when your hair falls out. Appalachia is when your teeth fall out."

Maher noted that Will Smith was initially laughing at Rock's joke until his "wife starting giving him the stinkeye," then adds, "I blame toxic femininity."

"The Academy says from now on they may ban Will Smith from ever coming back to the Oscars, and my question: 'And what's the punishment?'"

Later in the show during the panel discussion, Maher claimed that progressives applauding Smith for attacking someone over words exposed "liberal hypocrisy."

"It exposed, I thought, a lot of aspects of this society we have which are not terribly positive — toxic masculinity, victim culture. Liberal hypocrisy, I think, was the big loser," the HBO host declared,

"These are the very people who are always talking about micro-aggressions in the workplace and how you should be, you know, not have to face an uncomfortable moment or, you know, people shouldn't touch you or unwanted leave. Suddenly, they were okay with this," Maher ranted. "It just seemed to show, to me, broken morals. Like, you really have no principles."

"When it's a star that you like in the service of some vague principle into intersectionality like your wife shouldn't be insulted even in a mild way, then it's like, 'Well, too bad. That's what I like. It made me feel good. So I forget my principles."

Maher also said, "What do we make of what's going on with violence and the word violence? Because it's a common word among the woke. They seem to have broadened the definition, silence is violence and words can be violence, but then actual violence? Not a big deal. It's like, 'Violence is not an answer, except when I f***ing feel like it, and then it's a great answer.'"

"It was a bad night for liberal hypocrisy," Maher added.

Maher hypothesized that Hollywood and the Oscars have become a "representation" of the Democratic Party because neither are "connected to everyday people."

Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang was a guest on "Real Time with Bill Maher," and said voters in Iowa and Ohio would "recoil" when he told them he was running as a Democrat. Yang said the Americans associated the Democratic Party with "this kind of insincere moralizing that condescends to them," Fox News reported.

"And I think when you describe what happened the Oscars as exposing how some rules seem to apply more to some bigger than others, I think that's part of the frustration, you know, from the folks that were reacting to me when I was on the trail," Yang said.

Monologue: Toxic Femininity | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) www.youtube.com

Tone-deaf Whoopi Goldberg: Uproar over Hollywood elites 'really pisses me off' because 'a lot of us work for a living'



Whoopi Goldberg got a bit ornery on "The View" Thursday over growing complaints about Hollywood "elites," saying such talk "pisses me off" and that "a lot of us work for a living."

What are the details?

The program's co-hosts were weighing in on one of the biggest stories of the week, that actor Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday.

Co-host Sunny Hostin was frustrated that Smith reportedly refused to leave the building after being asked to do so, which she said "shows an incredible amount of entitlement and a misunderstanding, fundamentally, of what he had done." Anonymous sources have disputed the claim that Smith was asked to leave the event.

"The View" conversation soon shifted to disappointment with Oscar audience members who gave Smith a standing ovation for his best actor award a short time after he slapped Rock. Guest co-host Tara Setmayer — a former CNN political commentator and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill — wasn't down with the applause for Smith.

Setmayer said the crowd's behavior "goes back to why some people feel like Hollywood elites are a bunch of hypocrites because they go out there and give these statements of moral superiority about things and political statements, and then they’re ... doing a standing ovation after he just assaulted Chris Rock.”

But Goldberg wasn't having it, interjecting that "as one of those people, I gotta stop you."

'It really pisses me off'

"I just wanna stop with this 'elite' stuff because, you know, a lot of us work for a living. We work. We collect a check. We got families," she said. "We try to do the same thing, the good stuff that everybody else tries to do.”

Goldberg added that "it really pisses me off when people start to talk about people who work in Hollywood, not just actors, but all the other folks. So please, when you're talking about actors, be specific.”

Are folks who are tired of Hollywood elites really thinking about those "entitled" key grips, "woke" best boys, and "super rich" craft services personnel? No, they're thinking about celebrities like Goldberg.

Whoopi wasn't through, though. She added that if individuals are “pissed off about somebody or how they act, don’t put it on all of us, 'cause that’s like saying all black people like chicken.”

Here's the clip. The relevant portion starts just after the three-minute mark:

CHRIS ROCK SAYS HE\u2019S STILL \u201cPROCESSING WHAT HAPPENED\u201d: The comedian broke his silence on what happened between him and Will Smith at the #Oscars as the Academy says Smith refused to leave after the altercation \u2013 #TheView co-hosts and @TaraSetmayer react. http://abcn.ws/370JI64\u00a0pic.twitter.com/AEG1jm7xIX
— The View (@The View) 1648741343

Anything else?

Rock declined to press charges against Smith minutes after the slap, and Smith issued an apology to Rock on Instagram a day later. The Academy on Wednesday said its board of governors had launched disciplinary proceedings against Smith.

In Boston at his first show this week for his new comedy tour, Rock didn't break down anything about Smith's slap with his Boston audience, only saying that he's still "processing" the incident. Although he did quip to the crowd, "How was your weekend?"

(H/T: IJR)

Snopes gets taken to the WOODSHED for 'pathetic' attempt to defend Will Smith



In the wake of the now-infamous "slap heard around the world," a video clip of actor Will Smith making a bald joke during an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1991 has resurfaced.

Even before winning the Academy Award for best actor, Smith had already made headlines by marching onstage to smack comedian Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife's hair loss.

Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, suffers from alopecia, a condition defined by the Mayo Clinic as "hair loss (that) can affect just your scalp or your entire body." This includes, among others, androgenic alopecia (male-pattern baldness and female-pattern baldness), frontal fibrosing alopecia (a receding hairline), and alopecia areata, which is immune system-related and causes patchy hair loss.

Following Smith's unhinged reaction to Rock's joke at the Oscars, a video resurfaced on social media of Smith making a "bald joke" about Arsenio Hall’s bassist, John B. Williams, during a 1991 appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show."


That time in 1991 when Will Smith made fun of a bald man on the Arsenio Hall Show and said \u201cawe these are jokes man c\u2019mon\u201d.\n#WillAndChris #WillSmithAssault #ChrisRock #WillSmithpic.twitter.com/LMUyjwj0d8
— ThePopPunkDad (@ThePopPunkDad) 1648506144


The so called "fact-checkers" on Snopes were quick to jump to Smith's defense with an article that seriously attempted to say Smith isn't a bald-joke hypocrite because Williams, though clearly bald, does not necessarily suffer from alopecia.

Never mind that the vast majority of Twitter posts on the topic said nothing about "alopecia"; Snopes dug up the "one viral version of this video" (Snopes' own words, not ours) that was captioned, "Now this is a video of Will Smith saying a joke about someone with alopecia" to make the case.


Did Will Smith once do the exact same thing \u2014 make a bald joke directed at a person with alopecia \u2014 that led him to hit Chris Rock at the Oscars?\n\n No, and here's how we know:https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-smith-arsenio-hall/\u00a0\u2026
— snopes.com (@snopes.com) 1648629902

"While this clip is real, there’s no evidence that Smith’s joke was directed at someone with alopecia," wrote Snopes.

"While Smith did make a bald joke during this appearance, there’s no evidence that Williams, like Pinkett Smith, has alopecia. We looked over Williams’ bio on his website, profiles of the artist, and several interviews, and found no mention of Williams having alopecia. It appears that this claim was made up out of whole cloth in order to increase the video’s virality by making Smith’s actions appear especially hypocritical," the article added.

Many people on Twitter felt that Snopes may have entirely missed the point:

So he just had regular hair loss from a past illness?\nHunh.\nAnd not "alopecia" which is the medical term for hair loss?\nThat's... an interesting and useless claim of a difference.\n\nGood job fact hiders.\nYou've worked hard to hide another fact.
— Bert Difig (@Bert Difig) 1648653284
Another case of it's true but we don't like the narrative so we'll say it's not true
— MyOpinion (@MyOpinion) 1648650583
Q. Did Will Smith or did he not make fun of another person\u2019s lack of hair? \nA. He did. \n\nYour pathetic attempt to excuse Will Smith\u2019s unacceptable behavior is duly noted. Please dont whine because people don\u2019t take you seriously as a \u201cfact check\u201d site.
— Reine (@Reine) 1648649978


Snopes you really are a bunch of dishonest hacks. Love how you add in the qualifier \u201cwith alopecia\u201d to say the Will Smith didn\u2019t make fun of someone\u2019s hair\u2026
— RandomDragon (@RandomDragon) 1648654653
No one takes your so called journalism! Seriously.
— Sloan section 31 (@Sloan section 31) 1648654578
Snopes is a CLOWN SHOW!pic.twitter.com/PH0wbwWPcy
— Cindy (@Cindy) 1648650615


Snopes keeps posting this, but has missed that male pattern baldness called androgenic alopecia. Clearly not the same type of alopecia but still, yes Smith did make a joke at someone with alopecia.
— LatCit (@LatCit) 1648630180
Pathetic @snopes; just pathetic.
— Connie McLou \ud83c\udf40\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u2618\ufe0f (@Connie McLou \ud83c\udf40\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u2618\ufe0f) 1648656827
You're nothing more than a mouthpiece for the lefties anymore. You're lack of any research before you make an ass of yourselves is pathetic.
— Erin (@Erin) 1648651840

CNN analyst suggests audience reaction to Will Smith's slap is 'psychological case study on how Trump got normalized'



A CNN analyst suggested that the reaction of the Academy Awards audience to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock onstage is a "psychological case study on how Trump got normalized."

What are the details?

The analyst in question is Asha Rangappa, whose Twitter profile indicates she also is a former FBI special agent, a Yale faculty member, and a lawyer.

Here's what Rangappa tweeted Sunday night regarding the slap's aftermath:

So did like anyone walk out after that happened??? Or are we getting an independent psychological case study on how Trump got normalized?
— Asha Rangappa (@Asha Rangappa) 1648439848

"So did like anyone walk out after that happened???" she wondered. "Or are we getting an independent psychological case study on how [former President Donald] Trump got normalized?"

Rangappa — who reportedly bullied and doxxed a 22-year-old female Washington Free Beacon intern in 2020 and called her a "Karen" after Twitter ordered Rangappa to take down the offending post — on Monday morning mocked the notion that she was comparing Smith to Trump.

"The MAGA hate emails have begun, which tells me that the below tweet has made its way to the Breitbart ecosystem," she tweeted. "The sad part is that they are so stupid they don't realize I'm not comparing Smith to Trump, I'm comparing the audience to them."

Rangappa added that she "found the trigger" in the form of Fox News' story on her tweet: "Seriously, like clockwork — as soon as Fox News, etc. publishes something, I get unhinged, racist, threatening emails flooding my inbox."

Agreement

She wasn't the only individual to equate the incident and its aftermath to Trump and other sociopolitical forces:

  • Shock jock Howard Stern said on his Monday show that "this is how Trump gets away with s**t. Will Smith and Trump are the same guy."
  • Strategist Steve Schmidt — emphasizing the "power of group psychology" — asked, "Do you want to know how Trump happened? Watch the Oscars and the crowd reaction. The pull to belong is very powerful. Pull to conform to what is happening around you is a powerful tide. Applause for assault in a tuxedo in California is the same as applause for assault while wearing a red hat in Alabama. That was a crime. There was no virtue attached to it. None whatsoever."
  • CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez tweeted, "Slapping someone is a crime. That's what Mr. Smith did — on live TV, in public, while being seen across the globe. That the American audience game him a standing ovation after that says a lot about us, our culture ... and how Trumpism came to prominence in this country!"
  • Another Twitter user said, "If you're curious why Germans allowed Hitler to happen, or Americans allowed George W. Bush to lead us into Iraq, or why Russians are allowing Putin to murder Ukrainians....look at how the Oscar crowd and his supporters handled Will Smith tonight."

Pushback

Not everybody saw things quite that way, however.

Brandon Straka — creator of the anti-Democrat "Walk Away" campaign that made headlines during the 2020 election — tweeted that Smith "just unapologetically normalized violence at the Oscars & the left-wing Hollywood audience continued to clap and cheer for him & then hand him a trophy. Apparently if you can’t take a joke it’s not only acceptable to cancel someone — you can charge a stage & hit them."

Anything else?

Smith slapped Rock after the comedian joked about the lack of hair on Jada Pinkett Smith's head. Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife, revealed in 2018 her diagnosis of alopecia, an autoimmune disease that results in hair loss, NBC News reported.

After Smith slapped Rock, Smith turned around and walked back to his seat, sat down, and twice hollered at Rock, "Keep my wife's name out your f***ing mouth!"

Content warning: Profanity:

VIA JAPANESE TELEVISION: The uncensored exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rockpic.twitter.com/j0Z184ZyXa
— Timothy Burke (@Timothy Burke) 1648434735

Minutes later, Smith received a best actor Oscar for "King Richard," in which he portrays Richard Williams, the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams.

Smith got a standing ovation as he took the stage, after which he said as part of his acceptance speech that "Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family." Smith also invoked God and said he's being called "to love people, and to protect people, and to be a river to my people."

The actor also issued an apology — but not to Rock.

"I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees," Smith said, adding that "art imitates life ... I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. Love will make you do crazy things. ... Thank you, I hope the Academy invites me back."