And the Oscar goes to……
Will Smith’s Oscars trial is at a stalemate: With Smith’s fate over The Slap slated to be decided today, the Academy board is reportedly divided on whether to confiscate the “Hancock” actor’s Best Actor Oscar.
“The members — of which there are over 9,000, with hundreds of WhatsApp groups flying about — are completely split,” an LA Source told The Sun of the hearing by the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Tinseltown tribunal was originally scheduled to transpire on April 18, but was moved up to today following the 54-year-old’s resignation from the Academy.
Smith, who won the best actor Academy Award for his role in “King Richard,” slapped Oscars host Chris Rock after the 57-year-old comic made a “bald” crack about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia.
“The decision was made earlier this week to expedite the hearing in the wake of Will’s resignation,” the source explained. “And during that call, it was clear that the decision would go to the wire.”
However, after multiple calls with “various members, and specific governors over the past ten days,” the 54-member jury — of which there are 24 women — remains at a 50/50 impasse over the verdict, per the watchdog.
“The governors themselves are also said to be in disagreement,” said the source, adding that the board deemed it hypocritical to rescind Smith’s statuette given that “convicted sexual predator Harvey Weinstein and fugitive child rapist Roman Polanski” still haven’t been stripped.
“But, as we all know, Hollywood is a law unto itself, frankly,” lamented the source.
To date, the Academy has only revoked one Oscar: “Young Americans” had its 1969 best documentary accolade retracted after the board discovered that the film had come out in 1967.