Ricky Gervais Had A Quip About Will Smith Being Banned From The Oscars For A Decade

On Friday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally made a decision about what to do with Will Smith after his Oscars slap: The actor has been banned from attending the ceremony for 10 years. Since the incident, a noted awards show host, Ricky Gervais, has inevitably weighed in, making jokes about what jokes he would have said had he been in Chris Rock’s shoes. And he had one for the Academy’s big decision.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 8, 2022

“Hopefully, he’ll only do 6 years with good behaviour,” Gervais joked on Twitter.

While Smith will not be allowed to attend the show until 2032, not even virtually, at which point he’ll be in his 60s, that doesn’t mean he can’t be nominated, let alone win awards. Nor will the trophy he won for the biopic King Richard, which he accepted shortly after he struck Rock over a joke he made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, be rescinded.

Gervais never hosted the Oscars, but he gained notoriety, even infamy, for hosting the Golden Globes, which he did five times, starting in 2009. His jokes threw few punches, often eliciting gasps at his barbed insults of the rich and famous. His last Globes stint, in 2020, was not that well-received.