Will Smith hits Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars over Jada Pinkett Smith joke

Will Smith struck Chris Rock in the face on live television Sunday night at the 94th Academy Awards.

The moment occurred after Rock took the stage to present the award for Best Documentary Feature, and made a joke about the actor's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who recently shared her struggle with hair loss due to alopecia.

"Jada I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it," Rock joked, likening Jada's physicality to that of Demi Moore's in the film G.I. Jane, in which she appears with a shaved head. After a shot of Jada rolling her eyes at the quip flashed onscreen, Will then approached the stage and hit Rock in the face.

"Will Smith just smacked the s--- out of me," a stunned Rock said. "Wow, dude it was a G.I. Jane joke." Though the sound cut out on ABC's broadcast, according to footage shared on Twitter, Australian and Japanese television reportedly aired the moment completely uncensored as Smith yelled, "Keep my wife's name out of your f---ing mouth." Rock responded: "I'm going to, okay?"

According to reports from inside the Dolby Theatre, while they darkened the lights at the venue to show the clips for the Documentary Feature nominees, Denzel Washington walked over to Will and spoke to him and Jada.

After the commercial break, Sean Combs addressed both actors and stressed that they needed to "solve it like family" after the show.

In December, Jada shared a video of her head as she discussed living with alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss.

"Mama's gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something," she wrote on Instagram. "Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period!"

EW has reached out to reps for Rock and the Smiths for comment.

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