him. as he was talking, chris was being very dismissive of those options like no i m fine. reporter: academy of picture arts and sciences released a statement this week saying they asked smith to leave and he refused, academy leaders told smith s publicist to deliver the message to the actor. now smchris rock saying he did t want smith removed from the show. they were going to remove will smith, i said rock has made it clear, he does not want to make a bad situation worse. reporter: packer praised rock for how he handled the situation. did he save the show that night? i think he did. he certainly saved what was left of it, at that point. chris handled the moment with such grace. reporter: rock told fans during his stand-up show in boston this week that he s still processing what happened. so, that s some [ bleep ].