After the 2022 Oscars wrapped, a couple of images purporting to show celebrities reacting to the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap went viral on Twitter. But neither of the images was in reaction to the incident, and one image was from the Oscars ceremony in 2017. Despite a live broadcast and hundreds of photos from the event, Oscars misinformation easily spread online.
The Nicole Kidman gasp
A photo of Nicole Kidman dramatically gasping began popping up on Twitter Sunday night, and many users attributed it to her reaction to Smith slapping Rock across the face. Others took this as fact because Kidman was wearing her 2022 Oscars dress in the photo. While the photo was indeed taken last night by photographer Robyn Beck, it wasn’t in reaction to the slap. The photo was taken earlier in the night, as HuffPost reports. And based on a similar photo taken of Kidman that shows her waving, it looks like she was responding to someone in the audience.
Still, accounts like @UberFacts, which has more than 13 million followers, and @PopCulture2000s, which has more 400,000 followers, captioned the image as a reaction to the Smith/Rock incident. This allowed the false claim to grow before outlets began reporting on the photo’s true origin.
The celebrity collage
Another image that was also shared widely on Twitter post-Oscars is a collage of celebrity faces reacting to a moment at the Oscars. For those who watch the Oscars annually, it was instantly familiar as the scene from the close of the 2017 Oscars, where Moonlight won best picture after a mixup where La La Land was incorrectly named the winner of the top award.
But people again attributed the image as an audience reaction to the slap. “Everyone at the Oscar’s when Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock on national television,” wrote user @LORRAKON in a tweet that garnered more than 77,000 retweets and 394,000 likes. Several people in the collage, including Ryan Gosling and Meryl Streep, were not even in attendance at this year’s Oscars. That didn’t stop people from sharing Streep’s “reaction” to the Smith/Rock slap.
Lupita’s real reaction
The one reaction to the slap that was real? Lupita Nyong’o looking shocked and amazed while seated behind Smith. It was a reaction that viewers all witnessed on camera, and it is easily verified through videos and press photos of the event.
Nyong’o’s reaction became a meme on Twitter overnight—along with Smith being called a “cuck” and Judd Apatow’s much-derided analysis—but it was shared alongside a couple of images that were falsely attributed as reactions to the slap. Even with entertainment reporters and photographers documenting every big moment from the event, false information went viral.
And photographs from other Oscar moments weren’t the only source of misinformation. There was a lot of confusion surrounding the whole event following the biggest moment of the 2022 Oscars. For viewers in the U.S., the broadcast was muted following the slap and the words exchanged between Smith and Rock. Only by checking social media were American viewers immediately able to find out what actually happened—thanks to users in other countries posting unedited clips of the exchange.
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