This is a PSA. Will Smith, the actor who slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards 94th Academy Awards, is not the owner of @willsmith’s verified Twitter account.
Will Smith has no official Twitter account.
After the actor announced FridayHe was relinquishing his membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Will Smith — a podcaster, gamer and PR guy for indie game studio Stray Bombay who lives in San Francisco — girded for a new tweetstorm of misdirected commentary toward @willsmith, which he’s had since 2007. “Oh no, not again,” he WriteA GIF of a flying petunia bowl (a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe”).
This isn’t San Francisco Will Smith’s first rodeo in getting confused with the actor who shares his name. His personal website is indeed. notthatwillsmith.comHe is, as his Twitter bio reveals. “notthatwillsmith.”
After Will Smith, an actor, strode onto the Oscars Stage on live TV to smacked Rock who had made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, the years-long case of mistaken identities reached its climax Sunday. After being bombarded with tweet comments following The Slap @willsmith posted this: “Real talk, I’m not the person you’re upset/happy with. I make podcasts and video games for a living. At the risk of making people pissed off at me instead of that other guy, the world would be a better place if we stopped answering words with violence.”
Real talk, I’m not the person you’re upset/happy with. My job is to make podcasts and games.
Even though it might make people mad at me, I think the world would be better if we stopped using violence to answer our questions.
— Will Smith (@willsmith) March 28, 2022
Even Friday’s thread in which Will Smith, gamer-podcaster, reiterated his belief that he is Not thatWill Smith, Twitter users continue to misunderstand him. “Give back your Oscar CLOWN,” someone wrote in reply to @willsmith’s flying-petunias GIF.
Sympathizing with San Francisco Will Smith’s plight, one observer commented, “Somehow, still this many people are not questioning why the other guy would have a picture of some bearded white dude as their avatar?”
Yet, so many people do not ask why the other guy would use a picture of a white bearded man for their avatar. pic.twitter.com/QpIlMI9t4R
— Anne Kirn⁉️ (@house_of_darkly) April 2, 2022
Meanwhile, not helping matters was a tweet Sunday night by ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith — no relation to either of the Will Smiths — chastising the actor for his behavior, in which he tagged @willsmith.
“Didn’t know until just this moment about @jadapsmith having Alopecia. She’s wonderful and great. So is @willsmith — which we all know,”Stephen A. Smith tweeted. “They’re both phenomenal. But you do NOT do what Will did in that setting. Go backstage and handle that shit if you must. Horrible look!”
Didn’t know until just this moment about @jadapsmithAlopecia. She’s wonderful and great. So is she. @willsmith — which we all know. They’re both phenomenal. You can’t do what Will did in that situation. You can go backstage to handle the shit if necessary. Horrible look!
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) March 28, 2022
On Sunday, a financial planner named George Papadopoulus — not the George Papadopoulus who served as an adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making false statements to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian nationals — felt @willsmith’s pain.
“Dude, welcome to the club!”Papadopoulos, a financial-planner, tweeted about San Francisco Will Smith.