So, that wasn’t the first time Will Smith has hit someone at a Hollywood event

We’re all still reeling from the wild scenes that unfolded at the Oscars when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife, but did you know it’s not the first time the actor has thrown hands at a big Hollywood event?

Way back in 2012 – a simpler time – Will slapped a TV prankster who tried to give him a smooch on the red carpet at a premiere of Men In Black 3 in Moscow, Russia.

 

 

Vitalii Sediuk, a Ukrainian TV reporter, tried to plant a big old kiss on Will when he met him during the event, prompting the King Richard star to give him a shove followed by a quick backhand.

“What the hell is your problem, buddy?” Will can be seen asking Vitalii in footage from the altercation, before being ushered away.

“Hey, I’m sorry. He tried to kiss me on my mouth. That joker, he’s lucky I ain’t sucker punch him,” Will said, before noticing: “Oh sorry, I said that on camera.”

Speaking about the situation on David Letterman’s show a week later, Will said the ordeal was “just awkward”.

“He says, ‘I’m your biggest fan, can I have a hug?’ So I go to give this joker a hug, and he tries to lean in and kiss me!” he said.

Vitalii went on to publicly apologise for the prank, saying he knew the move was “too much”.

“I just wanted to do something extraordinary to impress him,” he told Hip Hollywood at the time.

Will said that Vitalii’s team had already made an apology on behalf of the reporter, but it didn’t sound like the Fresh Prince star was buying it.

“They were like, ‘Oh, no, we’re sorry, you know. It’s just his shtick’,” he told Letterman.

“I said, ‘Well, that’s why his *ss got shtuck’.”

[Source: EdgeFM]