Photos show celebrities reacting to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.
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No, these aren’t photos of celebrities reacting to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock
If Your Time is short
- A grid of photos showing aghast celebrities was compiled in 2017 and captures their reactions to a mistake during the 2017 Academy Awards in which "La La Land" was announced as Best Picture when "Moonlight" actually won the top prize.
- These photos don’t show celebrities reacting to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscars.
A grid showing the shocked faces of 12 celebrities is being shared on social media with the claim it shows actors, actresses and directors reacting to Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards on March 27.
But we did reverse image searches of the aghast faces and found that’s not the case.
These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Featured Fact-check
This grid of photos has been online since 2017, when "Moonlight" won Best Picture at the Oscars. But that night, "La La Land" was first wrongly named as the award’s winner and its producers were making their acceptance speeches when it was revealed that there had been a mistake — "Moonlight" was the actual winner.
Actors including Matt Damon, Dwayne Johnson, Busy Phillips, Meryl Streep, Salma Hayek and David Oyelowo were all reacting to the blunder.
We rate these posts False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, March 27, 2022
Facebook post, March 27, 2022
USA Today, We were there: How the worst flub in Oscar history went down, Feb. 28, 2018
New York Times tweet, Feb. 27, 2017
Mirror, Shocked faces of Meryl Streep and Matt Damon captured at EXACT moment of Oscars blunder, Feb. 27, 2017
BuzzFeed, Just 100 Hilarious Memes For Anyone Who's Gone To University, March 8, 2017
Los Angeles Times, The audience reacts to ‘Moonlight’ best picture reveal, 2017
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More by Ciara O'Rourke
No, these aren’t photos of celebrities reacting to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock
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