Following last year’s ceremony, Smith attended Vanity Fair’s afterparty, where he clutched his Oscar while singing and dancing to his song “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.”
Kimmel also warned audience members during his monologue not to come onstage and threaten him, noting that he’s protected by action stars in the room like Michael B. Jordan, Pedro Pascal, Michelle Yeoh, and Andrew Garfield.
“If any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it, it’s not going to be easy. There are a few of my friends you’re going to have to get through first. You’re gonna have to get through the heavyweight champ, Adonis Creed, before you get to me,” Kimmel said before the telecast cut to a shot of Jordan, who stars in the Creed film franchise.
Kimmel referenced the slap again when announcing the presenters for Best Ddocumentary Feature, which was the category Rock presented last year when Smith took the stage and slapped him. This year, Riz Ahmed and Questlove presented the award to the film Navalny.
“The next category is documentary feature, which as you may recall, is where things went off the rails last year. Hopefully, tonight it goes off without a hitch. Or at least without Hitch,” Kimmel said, referencing Smith’s 2005 rom-com Hitch.
Nearly two hours into the show, Kimmel offered another nod to last year’s incident, joking about how long the show was going.
“This point of the show kind of makes you miss the slapping, huh?” Kimmel said.
At the end of the show, Kimmel made his last reference to last year’s slap. While exiting the stage, he walked toward a sign that read: “Number of Oscars Telecasts Without Incident.”
He switched the number from 000 to 001.
