A man looks at a mural by Berlin-based street artist Eme Freethinker featuring the likeness of US actor Will Smith (R) slapping US comedian Chris Rock during the Oscars ceremony, in Berlin on March 30, 2022 ( AFP / John MacDougall)

Posts falsely claim to have predicted Will Smith slapping Chris Rock

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 1, 2022 at 22:49
2 min read
By AFP USA, Manon JACOB,

Facebook posts claim to have predicted that Will Smith would slap Chris Rock years before the actor did so at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony. But the edit histories of the posts show they were changed to reference the altercation only after it took place.

"Will Smith gonna smack the piss out Chris Rock one day," says a Facebook post dated March 28, 2015. But its edit history makes clear that the post originally said: "At first I thought he was trying to get a cat out the tree....with fire hose."

The reference to the Oscars altercation was only added on March 28, 2022, a day after Smith shocked the entertainment world by taking the stage during the live broadcast of Hollywood's most important night and hitting Rock after the comedian made a joke about the actor's wife.

A screenshot of a Facebook post taken on April 1, 2022

A screenshot of a Facebook post's edit history taken on April 1, 2022

Another Facebook post dating to 2015 also falsely claimed to have predicted the Oscars dustup. In reality, the reference to Smith hitting Rock was only added on March 31, 2022.

Screenshot taken on April 1, 2022 of the edit history of a Facebook post

Other similarly false claims appeared on Facebook in English here, here and here, and in Spanish here.

If a Facebook post is edited after it is published, changes can be viewed by clicking on "View edit history" in a drop down menu that can be accessed from the top right corner.

AFP Fact Check has debunked other inaccurate claims related to the Smith-Rock incident here and here.

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