Will Smith apologised to the comedian Chris Rock on Monday evening for slapping him during Sunday night’s Oscars telecast after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences denounced his actions and opened an inquiry into the incident.

Smith, who had pointedly not apologised to Rock on Sunday night when he accepted the award for best actor, wrote on Instagram on Monday evening that “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris.”

“I was out of line and I was wrong,” he said in the statement. “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be.”

His apology came as the academy, which administers the awards, a major Hollywood union and others criticised his actions, which stunned viewers around the world and overshadowed the Oscars.

“The academy condemns the actions of Mr Smith at last night’s show,” the film organisation said in a statement. “We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct and California law.”

The academy’s statement came after a meeting on Monday. A five-page document on standards of conduct that accompanied it spells out behaviour the organisation deems unacceptable. It prohibits “physical contact that is uninvited and, in the situation, inappropriate and unwelcome, or coercive sexual attention”. Also not allowed is “intimidation, stalking, abusive or threatening behaviour, or bullying”.

Disciplinary action, according to the bylaws, could include “suspension of membership or expulsion from membership”.

The academy was not known to have expelled a member before 2017, when Harvey Weinstein was removed amid allegations of sexual harassment and rape.

Then, in 2018, after adopting a code of conduct for members, the organisation expelled Bill Cosby, who had been convicted of sexual assault, and the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who had fled the country years earlier while awaiting sentencing for statutory rape.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the union representing thousands of people who work in film, television and radio, called the incident “unacceptable” but said that it “does not comment on any pending member disciplinary process”.

“Violence or physical abuse in the workplace is never appropriate and the union condemns any such conduct,” the union said in a statement on Monday. “The incident involving Will Smith and Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable.”

The incident unfolded on Sunday night after Rock made a joke about the buzzed hair of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss. Will Smith responded by walking onto the stage of the Dolby Theater and slapping Rock, leaving stunned viewers wondering at first if the blow might have been scripted until Smith returned to his seat and warned him to stop talking about his wife, using expletives.

Behind the scenes at the Oscars, there were serious discussions about removing Smith from the theatre, according to two industry officials with knowledge of the situation who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. But time was short, because the best actor award, which Smith was heavily favoured to win, was fast approaching, one noted — and stakeholders had varying opinions on how to proceed. There was also concern about further disrupting the live broadcast, the other said.

As the show went on, the actor Denzel Washington spoke with Smith during a commercial break. Not long after that Smith won best actor. (Smith said in his speech that Washington had told him: “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.”) In his onstage remarks, Smith apologised to the academy and to his fellow nominees — but not to Rock — and defiantly sought to draw parallels to the character he played in King Richard, the father of Venus and Serena Williams.

“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” Smith said.

He received a standing ovation.

Smith said in his statement on Monday that he had reacted emotionally because a joke about his wife’s medical condition was “too much for me to bear”. Smith also apologised to the Academy, the show’s producers, the viewers, the people who worked on King Richard and the Williams family.

“I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us,” he said. “I am a work in progress.”

The powers-that-be at the Oscars had been intent on not repeating last year’s record-low ratings, putting a series of changes in place they had hoped would draw more viewers: installing three comic actresses as hosts, pre-taping some awards to try to quicken the pace, introducing a fan-favourite award that viewers could vote on. But the broadcast became must-see television for a reason they did not anticipate.

The telecast drew a larger audience than last year’s, but interest remained depressed compared with past years. The awards show attracted 15.4 million viewers on ABC, a 56 per cent improvement on the 9.85 million people who watched the 2021 event, according to ABC. Sunday night’s show was still the second least-watched Oscars ever.

Comedians, who tell uncomfortable and sometimes offensive jokes for a living, raised concerns about the precedent Smith had set.

“Let me tell you something, it’s a very bad practice to walk up onstage and physically assault a comedian,” Kathy Griffin tweeted. “Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.”

Jimmy Kimmel, the comedian and talk show host who had been the last person to host the Oscars, said that he felt bad for the show’s hosts; for Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who won the best documentary feature award Rock had been presenting, and for Rock, who he said “certainly didn’t deserve that”.

“In a way, I feel bad for Will Smith too, because I think he let his emotions get the better of him, and this should have been one of the great nights of his life,” Kimmel said. “And now it’s not. Was there anyone who didn’t like Will Smith an hour ago in the world? Like no one, right? Now he doesn’t have a single comedian friend — that’s for sure.”

The Los Angeles Police Department said it was aware of what it described as an incident involving “one individual slapping another” at the Oscars. The police said the person involved had “declined to file a police report”.

“If the involved party desires a police report at a later date,” the police said, they would move forward and “complete an investigative report”.

One top studio executive, who declined to speak on the record, voiced disappointment in Smith and in the fact that the audience in the theatre gave him a standing ovation.

Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, worried aloud in a tweet that “the way casual violence was normalized tonight by a collective national audience will have consequences that we can’t even fathom in the moment”.

Others seemed to defend Smith. “Many takes on here about Will Smith and Chris Rock, especially from people whose partners are not Black women (mainly white people),” the author Frederick Joseph tweeted. “I don’t care if it’s a joke or not, the amount Black women have to endure — people are tired of it. We have no idea what Jada has gone through.”

The comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, said in an interview with People magazine at an after-party that she appreciated seeing Smith protect his wife.

“Maybe the world might not like how it went down,” Haddish said, “but for me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”

Even still, the day after, the prevailing reaction was mostly one of disbelief.

“We’re not sure where the fallout will end up,” Ryan Seacrest said on Monday on his morning show Live With Kelly and Ryan. “It was one of those moments that we couldn’t believe when we saw it.”

New York Times News Service