For a moment there, it seemed as if we would never come from underneath the rumble of the Oscars slap. Months ago, Will Smith stunned the world when he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, and the moment became all anyone could talk about. The ceremony was being hosted by Amy Schumer, Regina King, and Wanda Sykes, and as the trio of comedic actors thought this was their big Hollywood moment, it was overshadowed by the controversy.
Sykes would later say that she was “traumatized” by the incident, as would Schumer, and in a more recent chat with Live with Kelly and Ryan, Sykes was asked if she would ever return as an Oscars host.
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“Oh, hell no,” she quickly answered before explaining her reasoning. “I mean, I shouldn’t say it like that. It was an amazing honor, and I think it’s something that you want to do, you do it once, and I don’t know if I would want to do it again. It’s a huge job, and it took a lot of people to clean me up.”
She added, “It was an amazing night, it really was. You know, it was just so much good vibes going on in the room, the movie ‘CODA’ was killing it, everyone was really happy.” However, she was surprised that Smith was allowed to remain in the building.
“It was just like, what is happening?” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe it, shocked. And then it was like, ‘OK, so everyone’s just going to sit here?’ The show just kept going. I’d look beyond the curtain, like, ‘He’s still sitting here?’”
Days after the Oscars, Sykes said that at the afterparty, Rock apologized for stealing her moment. Meanwhile, ABC stated they would welcome Rock to host the Oscars next year.
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