Chris Rock insisted he did not want to press charges against Will Smith, Oscars show producer says

By Andy Rose, CNN

After Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage Sunday at the Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles police officers were prepared to arrest Smith, according to an interview with the award show’s producer, but the comedian was adamant he did not want to press charges.

In an excerpt of an interview with ABC News, aired Thursday on “World News Tonight,” producer Will Packer said LAPD officers told Rock, “This is battery” and that he could press charges, and they were prepared to arrest Smith that night.

“They said, we will go get him. We are prepared. We are prepared to get him right now. You can press charges. We can arrest him. They were laying out the options,” Packer told ABC. “And as they were talking, Chris was … being very dismissive of those options. He was like, no, I’m fine. He was, like, no, no, no.”

The LAPD put out a statement on the night of the Oscars, saying, “The individual involved has declined to file a police report.”

Rock made a brief reference to the incident Wednesday at a stand-up show in Boston, his first public appearance since the Oscars. He told the audience he was “still processing what happened” and would have more to say at a later date.

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