Jimmy Kimmel said he has no doubt how Will Smith would have handled Chris Rock’s slap if he had hosted this year’s Oscars.
Kimmel has already joked about running away if he had been on stage at the time of Smith’s attack, but on Tuesday’s broadcast of Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show, the late-night comedian had a more serious tone.
“Oh, I would have gone right there. I wouldn’t have even waited for someone to say something,” he said. “He would have come right out on stage because somebody had to come out at that time. And I think that was one of the downsides of having three hosts is that it wasn’t clear who was going to come out here.”
Kimmel reportedly “started talking to Will Smith” and first asked him, “What are you doing?” he stated
Kimmel recalled how, when he hosted the ceremony in 2017, he took it upon himself to take the stage to address the misannouncement of “La La Land” as best picture for “Moonlight.”
“No one knew what was going to happen, no one told me to go on stage, I said, ‘I guess I’d better go up because I’m the only one with a microphone on…'” he told Stern.
Watch Kimmel’s comments here:
Elsewhere in Kimmel’s interview with Stern, he revealed how the unexpected shape of the stage led to his drunken call to this year’s Emmy Awards causing a backlash:
He also recalled the time “Mission Impossible” actor Tom Cruise came to his house to watch football:
