i have to say, look, vanity fair is the party where they all come to turnout with their gold statuettes. been trying to stop people and get their reactions and find out what they thought about what happened tonight. will smith of, course a hugely popular man in this town. nobody is willing to say anything so far. nobody s wanting to comment. a lot of people who were at the oscars that we spoke to, kevin costner, he was backstage at the time, backstage, didn t see it, don t want to comment on. one of those things, just a strange moment. when we watched it, we first thought, is this some sort of staged choreographed moment. it just did not seem like something that will smith, hollywood s nice man would end up do it. in his defense, should be taken to account the fact that he has been under tremendous amount of pressure this award season. focus has been entirely on that him throughout this. this was his moment. 30 years within the industry.
first time last night, arriving at his own reportedly told the audience he s processing what is happening. let s get the latest from our correspondent, greg milam. there have been a lot of questions about why something wasn t done at the time of this incident. it s clear that the academy was taken by surprise as everybody else who was watching. things unfolded in a way that we could not have anticipated, they say in a statement. they do say that will smith was asked to leave the ceremony after this incident, but refused. they also say that they recognize they could ve handled things differently. they are now taking action with these disciplinary proceedings for violating the code of conduct. they say inappropriate physical contact, abusive or threatening behavior. they accuse will smith of. the potential punishments for that go right up to explosion from the academy. now, in modern, times that is only happened to the times harvey weinstein, roman polanski. people were guilty of s
surprise, as everyone else who was watching, things unfolded in a way they could not have anticipated they say in a statement. they do say that will smith was asked to leave the ceremony, after that incident, but refused. and they also say that they recognized they could have handled things differently. they are now taking action though with the disciplinary proceedings for violating the code of conduct, as they say inappropriate physical contact, abusive or threatening behavior, and they accused will smith of, the potential punishment for that, it goes right up to expulsion from the academy. now, in modern times, that has only happened to the likes of harvey wine stein, roman planski, people guilty of serious sexual offenses so that is seen as unlikely to happen. also the suggestion that will smith could have the oscar taken back, again seen as unlikely, it has only happened once in the history of the academy, whoopi goldberg an academy governor says it is not going to happen in this