“If you talk to 10 men, 4 of the men gonna be like ‘I’d do the same thing for my wife, I’m not worried about the consequences’” - Shaquille O’Neal on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars

Just about everyone has shared their opinion about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. Although it happened nearly two weeks ago, Los Angeles Lakers legend and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal recently commented on the incident on his podcast.

During the Oscars, Rock was presenting an award, and before doing so, he took time to make a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who is bald due to the medical condition alopecia. Smith took offense to the joke, got up, and slapped Rock across the face, stunning everyone watching. Smith would actually go on to win the award for best actor later in the show.

In the most recent episode of O’Neal’s podcast, “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” titled “The Big Accountability | Jamal Crawford,” he spoke about what happened between the two famous actors. At the 50-minute mark, O’Neal says:

“If you talk to 10 men, four of the man gonna be like, 'I'd do the same thing for my wife. I'm not worried about the consequences. That man disrespected my wife. I gotta do what I gotta do.'' Then you know two of those guys would go, ‘Ah, I don’t know.’ Then you break the other four, that would say, ‘That was wrong you shouldn’t have done that.'”

The question of if Will Smith was right for defending his wife and slapping Rock has been a heated debate throughout the pop culture world. It has been such a big story that we are still talking about it weeks later, and it has infiltrated the NBA world.

NBA player's reaction to Will Smith’s slap

Will Smith at F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi

With Smith’s slap reverberated through the media cycle. NBA players started to make their own comments and take on the jaw-dropping moment. On Twitter, it has become the number one thing with NBA players who were just as surprised as everyone else in the world.

Everyone had a different take on what happened, from Rudy Gay making a joke about the situation by tweeting out:

“Shout out to Chris Rock for not rubbing his face after the smack…. I know he wanted too”

To straight shocked by Miles Bridges tweeting out:

“Why the first thing I see after our game is Will smacking tf outta Chris Rock 😂😂😂😂😳”

Will Smith slapping Chris Rock live on stage definitely took people by surprise and has been such a crazy moment that conversations have continued and likely will not stop for some time.