Jim Carrey Says Jada Pinkett Smith Can 'Defend Herself'

Jim Carrey has had more to say about Will Smith's Oscars controversy, arguing that the incident was about 'more than just an insult to someone's wife'.

Carrey had previously said that Smith 'should have been arrested' after he slapped Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars, claiming that if it were him, he would have sued the King Richard star 'for $200 million'.

Now, he's been giving his opinion on what caused Smith to behave the way he did, arguing that the star was facing 'a lot of pressure' to maintain his public profile.

"We set up a lot of pressure for ourselves, we’re encouraged by this country to never stop and never be satisfied and never look at our lives and [go], ‘You know what? I’m enough. I have enough. I’ve done enough. I don’t need nine businesses'," he told AP.

Referring to Smith's multiple roles and business ventures within Hollywood, he continued: "It’s beyond our bandwidth. And we’re starting to see the symptoms of what it’s like to be living beyond your bandwidth and cracking under the pressure.

"That’s what that was. It was more than just an insult to someone’s wife. Jada’s a tough girl. She can defend herself. She wasn’t being physically attacked.

"What that was was someone who was beyond the bandwidth, and he thought more about how he was looking in that moment than what was the right thing to do. I don’t condemn him for it. It’s just wrong."

Carrey also said he feared that the fact that Smith hit Rock on stage and was still able to remain at the show to collect his award was symptomatic of a 'larger issue' of 'boundaries being broken' and 'permissiveness to certain behaviours'.

The slap (Alamy)

"The fact is that licence is being given to people to act out violently when they don’t like what they hear. And it just shouldn’t be," he said.

Carrey's comments come after it was revealed that Los Angeles Police Department officers had been prepared to arrest Smith following the incident.

"They said, 'We will go get him. We are prepared. We're prepared to go get him right now. You can press charges. We can arrest him'," said Will Packer, one of the awards show's producers, before claiming that Rock was 'very dismissive' of the suggestion.

The LAPD has said that Rock declined to press charges against Smith.

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