Tyler Perry compassionate toward Will Smith, thinks slap was ‘trauma’ response but not an 'excuse'

By Rebecca Johnson // People // EEW Magazine Online

Is Christian media mogul Tyler Perry attempting to assess and address the Will Smith Oscars slap the Bible way, by not judging and considering his own susceptibility to human error?

It seems so.

In a conversation with journalist Gayle King – as part of the Tribeca Film Festival's Directors Series in New York City – the 52-year-old filmmaker tried to explain the possible motivation and mindset behind Smith’s physical attack on the comedian at the Oscars ceremony in March.

Perry’s conclusion? It was all tied to a traumatic incident in Smith’s past.

"I just read his book, and there's this moment about not being able to protect his mother,” said the Madea creator, discussing the King Richard star’s recently released memoir, Will.

In the emotional account referenced by Perry, Smith, 53, revealed, “When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood.”

Will Smith and his mother Caroline Bright, a domestic abuse survivor (Credit: Getty via EEW Magazine)

Smith continued writing, “Within everything that I have done since then — the awards and accolades, the spotlights and the attention, the characters and the laughs — there has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in that moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward.”

From Perry’s viewpoint, this very memory subconsciously fueled the aggression of the actor with a previous reputation for being kind, good-natured, and wholesome.

Rock, 57, was struck by Smith after joking about the baldness of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith who suffers from alopecia – an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. As a means of protecting his spouse in the way that he could not protect his mother more than 40 years ago, Smith flew into a rage.

At least that’s what Perry thinks may have happened.

Smith’s father, Willard Carroll Smith Sr., and mother, Caroline Bright, split when he was a teen and divorced in 2000, but the effects of that violent abuse incident linger.

After Smith’s mother saw him explode on Oscar night, she told WPVI-TV/6abc, “He is a very even, people person, and that's the first time I've ever seen him go off. The first time in his lifetime,” she said, adding, “I've never seen him do that."

Perry, whose theory may or may not be right—Who can known for sure besides Will Smith?— has been open, too, about the severe physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his alcoholic father, Emmitt Perry, a construction contractor.

This is one of the key reasons he empathizes with Smith.

“I know that feeling. I'm getting chills just thinking about it,” said Perry. “I know that feeling of being a man and thinking about the little boy. And if that trauma is not dealt with right away, as you get older, it will show up in the most inappropriate, most horrible time.”

Though some may assume Perry, a writer, director, actor and producer, who owns his own 330-acre movie and TV production studio in Atlanta, is taking sides, he said he is “friends with both of them,” which he admitted is “very difficult” these days.

But make no mistake; while Perry connects emotionally with Smith’s trauma, he told King, “That is no excuse. He was completely wrong for what he did. But something triggered him. That is so out of everything he is."

Perry said he also directly told Smith that he was "wrong in no uncertain terms."

"And I'll tell you, when we walked over to him, he was devastated. He couldn't believe what happened. He couldn't believe he did it,” Perry recalled.

Since the incident, Rock, who Perry said is “a pure champion for the way he handled it,” has made a few jokes in reference to the assault. However, the veteran comic and actor has not yet released a formal statement but promises he will "talk about it at some point.”