Jim Carrey “sickened” by Hollywood for Giving Will Smith Standing Ovation After Chris Rock Incident

In an interview with Gayle King, Jim Carrey shared his thoughts on Will Smith’s choice to slap Chris Rock on a joke he made about Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars ceremony.

The actor weighed in on the topic during a March 28 interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings while promoting his new movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

“I was sickened by the standing ovation,” Carrey said, appearing to reference the audience’s reaction to Smith winning the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar for his performance in King Richard following his incident with Rock. “I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse and it really felt like, oh, this is a really clear indication that we’re not the cool club anymore.”

Read More: Will Smith’s mother Carolyn Smith shares her “dissatisfaction” over son slapping Chris Rock at Oscars

Before taking home the trophy, Smith slapped Rock onstage for a G.I. Jane joke the comedian made about Jada Pinkett Smith while presenting an award. The actress, who is married to Smith, has alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss. Afterwards Smith told Rock to, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth.”

King said that some feel if anyone else had done that, they could have been escorted out by security or arrested. Carrey replied, “He should have been.” According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Rock has declined to file a police report against Smith.

“He doesn’t want the hassle,” Carrey continued. “I’d have announced this morning that I was suing Will for $200 million because that video is going to be there forever. It’s going to be ubiquitous. You know, that insult is going to last a very long time.”

When King said the incident “escalated to that level,” Carrey disagreed. “It didn’t escalate,” he said. “It came out of nowhere because Will has something going on inside him that’s frustrated. And I wish him the best, I really do. I don’t have anything against Will Smith. He’s done great things. But that was not a good moment.”

Carrey also felt like the incident took the attention away from other Oscar winners. “It casts a pall over everybody’s shining moment last night, you know?” he added. “A lot of people worked really hard to get to that place and to have their moment in the sun and to get their award for the really hard work they did.”

He said “it was a selfish moment” on Smith’s part to take away from the “feat” of the other winners.

Will Smith has apologized to Rock in a March 28 Instagram post.

“My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable,” Smith wrote in part. “Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally. I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong.”

The Academy condemned the incident at the award show and has already started a formal review.

Chris Rock has yet to publicly speak out about the incident.