One of the world’s most famous movie superstar, Will Smith currently faces a two-week fight to save his career as the Academy mulls taking away his Oscar – with the star planning to “beg for forgiveness” in a letter to awards bosses, a report by Daily Mail said on Friday.
Smith is set for a ‘D-Day’ hearing with the Academy on April 18 where he will find out “if he still has an Oscar – and a career,” an insider said.
This follows his assault on Chris Rock on stage while the ceremony took place last week.
Smith will also call Oscars chiefs “in the next 24 hours” to plead his case before the showdown panel later this month, it was revealed.
“Things are hanging in the balance. He will write an official letter to apologise, and effectively beg for their forgiveness”, the source close to the actor told The Sun.
“April 18 is D-Day, though — he will find out if he still has an Oscar, and quite possibly, a career”, they continued.
The actor’s other projects in the can including Bad Boys 4 and Apple slavery drama Emancipation, are now up in the air as studio heads refuse to pick sides too early.
Smith added insult to injury by defending the slap in his Best Actor speech and dancing with his family at the Vanity Fair after-party.
One Oscars attendee told the paper, “That doesn’t exactly say, ‘I’m sorry for what I’ve done and I’m ashamed’. It’s more, ‘I don’t care.'”
The dramatic development follows the revelation that Chris Rock refused to have Smith arrested.
Oscars producer Will Packer said Rock was asked if he wanted Smith removed and pinched for the battery.
Packer says cops told Rock, “We will go get him, we are prepared to get him right now. You can press charges. We can arrest him,” according to Good Morning America.
But Rock declined the offer.
Academy governor, Whoopi Goldberg, insisted that Smith was asked to leave, but there were fears he was ‘manic’ and would make a scene if security tried to physically escort him out.
She added that Oscar producers and organisers even considered the possibility that Smith was having a manic moment because that’s not what he’s known for.
