Amy Schumer addressed the negative response to her Instagram post where she admitted to feeling “triggered and traumatized” days after Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock over a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett in the middle of the Oscars, per E! News.
Schumer said during a recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show that she was aware “people made fun of me for saying that [incident] was traumatizing. But I don’t think it was traumatizing for me. I think it was traumatizing for all of us.”
“Chris Rock is my good friend, like one of my best friends and Questlove is also one of my best friends,” she continued. “And so, to see that happen, to see your friend get hit… and then and also Will Smith—who I’ve loved and we’ve all loved forever—like I’ve I don’t remember a time I didn’t think, ‘I love that guy. I haven’t been around much violence. I didn’t grow up with it in the home or anything. It was shocking. And it was a bummer.”
Schumer previously described the incident as a “bummer” during a comedy show in Las Vegas earlier this month. “All I can say is that it was really just sad. It says so much about race, about toxic masculinity, it’s just, everything. It was just really upsetting,” she told the crowd.
Schumer’s fellow Oscars co-host Wanda Sykes said on Ellen that she was also still “a little traumatized” over witnessing what transpired between Rock and Smith. Both Schumer and Sykes are looking at this unprecedented situation as friends of Rock.
“Still triggered and traumatized. I love my friend @chrisrock and believe he handled it like a pro. Stayed up there and gave an Oscar to his friend @questlove and the whole thing was so disturbing,” Schumer wrote in the since-deleted Instagram post. “I’m still in shock and stunned and sad. Im proud of myself and my cohosts. But yeah. Waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed.”
Smith posted a written statement one day after the Oscars, delivering a blanket apology to the Academy, the Williams family, the King Richard cast, and of course, Rock. The comedian recently told a crowd at one of his shows that he will not talk about the incident “until I get paid.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix paid Rock $40 million for two specials in 2016.
Amid mounting public backlash, Smith announced his resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, prior to a meeting among the board of governors, which later ruled that this year’s Best Actor winner will be banned from attending the ceremony for 10 years.
According to Variety, Schumer received death threats over her seat filler joke towards Kirsten Dunst. “They were so bad the Secret Service reached out to me about that bit,” she said. “I was like, ‘I think you have the wrong number. It’s Amy, not Will.’ The misogyny is unbelievable.” Schumer said the LAPD also got involved.
Schumer claimed she sought the approval of everyone she said a joke about at the Oscars, which included Dunst and Leonardo DiCaprio, who told her, “Go ahead,” in regards to her line about the Don’t Look Up actor’s propensity to date younger women.
