With a similar flavor to Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl, Will Smith's recent public outburst has caused quite a stir around the internet. While most people were shocked that Smith would even consider violence, especially at a worldwide televised event, some conspiracy theorists believe the slap was staged. It wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for something like this to be set up. The Oscars have been losing viewership for the past few years and with only 15 million viewers this year, they could have pulled this stunt to boost their numbers for next year.



An American comedian named Kevin T Porter claimed to have written the slap as part of an elaborate joke. He wrote in a tweet, "hey I wrote that silly Chris Rock will smith slap bit. we knew we’d push some buttons but comedy is meant to provoke and make people think, I’m proud we did both those things tonight at #Oscars2022!"



While many people commented that they didn't believe Porter, this didn't stop the hundreds of conspiracy theorists from using his tweet as a point of contention in their argument that the slap was faked. Some even went as far to say that Chris Rock was wearing a cheek pad to soften the blow of Smith's "real-looking" slap.



One theorist said, "The most expensive slap turned out to be part of the script shocking yall ain't think about how he didn't get fined and 20minutes later he won a #oscar." 


However, someone pointed out that the photos used to show the cheek pad Rock was supposedly wearing was just a misuse of an AI app or a quick Photoshop job. "That's an upscaling software error. When there's so little information on a part of a photo the software has to make up what's there and sometimes with only a simple shadow on the face, this software can make up a lot of strange things," they said.


Another said, "It’s funny tho, Cus this isn’t an 8K quality image. Nor will it ever be an 8K quality image, Cus not only is Twitter only capable of posing in barely HD, there’s not a single smartphone out there with a screen resolution of 8K. Try again," noting that the image of Rock's close-up face is better quality than the actual video of the slap itself.


Whether it's real or fake, the slap heard around the world will be talked about for the next week and then never be brought up again.