Tyler Perry Wants To Make It Clear He Was Not Taking Sides While Comforting Will Smith After Oscars Slap!

Yeah, yeah… we’re bringing up that Oscars slap again. You’ll remember there were a few high profile celebrities talking to Will Smith minutes after the slap. Those celebs included Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry.

And a lot of people took them comforting Will as them siding with Will. After all, who was going to check on Chris Rock backstage? Well, turns out, Tyler Perry was playing both sides.

During a conversation with Gayle King at the Tribeca Film Festival, Perry said he left the show early to go check on Rock.

I left early to go and check on Chris because it was wrong in no uncertain terms. I made sure I said that to Will, and when we walked over to him, he was devastated. He couldn’t believe what happened.

Perry said he wasn’t comforting Smith or siding with him, he was simply trying to “de-escalate” the situation. In the interview, Perry said he believes Smith is still trying to process the whole thing and figure out why exactly it happened in that moment.

Perry talked about how he believes the outburst was sparked by childhood trauma, as Smith talked about in his memoir, when he was unable to protect his mother from an abusive relationship.

I know that feeling, I’m getting chills thinking about it. I know that feeling of being a man and thinking about the little boy. If that trauma is not dealt with right away as you get older, it will show up in the most inappropriate, most horrible time.

Also, just in case you haven’t already gotten the message, Perry wants to make it clear… he’s friends with Smith and Rock. He was trying to look out for both of them. He admits it’s been challenging being so close with the both of them.

There’s a difference between comforting and de-escalating. Being friends with both of them, it’s been very difficult.

Makes you wonder if Rock felt some type of way about Perry publicly comforting Smith following the slap.