Thread by @TelegraphFilm

❌ Why Will Smith snapped.

As Hollywood reels from the actor’s violent Oscars outburst, we uncover the deep-rooted tensions that led up to it. 👇

🧵 Thread
telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/03/…

Will Smith has a therapist, and she has a name for his nice-guy persona: Uncle Fluffy. “Fluffy was jovial, talented, smart, generous. Uncle Fluffy needed everyone to like him,” Smith writes in his memoir.

➡️ At the Oscars on Sunday night, Uncle Fluffy abruptly left the building

After Chris Rock made the mistake of joking about Pinkett Smith’s bald head, Smith launched himself out of his seat, strode onto the stage and slapped him in the face.

Barely half an hour later, Smith, 53, was on stage again – this time accepting the best actor

The Academy reportedly held an emergency meeting once the ceremony was over, with some members demanding that Smith be stripped of his Oscar.

But at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, he rapped the lyrics while waving his gold statuette, and looked to be having the time of his life

'There is history here.'

Rock also had a jibe at Pinkett-Smith when he hosted the 2016 Academy Awards, saying that her boycott of the ceremony as part of the #Oscarssowhite protest was redundant when she hadn’t actually been invited

'No celebrity couple has over-shared quite so much as this one.'

'Long rumoured to have an open marriage, Pinkett Smith has said: “Will and I both can do whatever we want. This does not mean we have an open relationship… this means we have a grown one"

✍️ At a couples’ therapy session, they were asked to write down their biggest priorities. Pinkett Smith put their children first.

Smith chose himself.

When the couple decided to separate, Smith told her: “I retire from trying to make you happy"

'To find a reason for that – and for his violent outburst on stage – you need look no further than the first page his memoir 'Will'.

He recalls watching his father, Willard, a volatile drunk, punching his mother, Caroline, in the head so hard that she collapsed

🗣️ “That moment," Smith says, "probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am today".

Read the full story here 👇
telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/03/…