Featured Image Credit: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo. REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Academy Awards, Celebrity
Stewart Perrie
Topics: Academy Awards, Celebrity
The host of the 2023 Academy Awards will absolutely deck anyone who tries to repeat last year.
By last year we mean someone rushing onto the stage and slapping the host after making a controversial joke.
Jimmy Kimmel, who has the ultimate job of hosting this year's Oscars, says he has some big shoes to fill after comedian Chris Rock was the head honcho last year.
The 2022 ceremony was marred in controversy when Will Smith infamously slapped Rock for joking about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith's bald hair.
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The comedian host took the slap like a champ and didn't fight back.
But that won't be happening under Kimmel's watch.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the TV star was asked what he would do if an A-lister rushed onto the stage to confront him.
“Well, I size them up, and, if I’m bigger than they are, I beat the s**t out of them on television. And if it’s The Rock, I run,” he joked.
He was also quizzed on whether he will be making any comments about that infamous moment from last year.
Kimmel admitted it's 'almost boring to joke about at this point', before adding: “Well, whatever I say about it, it’s going to have to be great, right?
"Because so much has been said and there’s so much focus on it. I obviously don’t want to make the whole monologue about that, but it would be ridiculous not to mention it.”
This isn't Kimmel's first dig at hosting Hollywood's night of nights.
He first steered the Oscars ship in 2017, which was nearly as controversial as last year's event.
Best Picture is arguably one of the biggest awards given at the ceremony, if not the most coveted.
When the envelope was unsealed, the words La La Land were read out, prompting cheers and applause from the cast, crew and fans of the musical.
However, it was quickly revealed that it was, in fact, Moonlight that had won Best Picture.
What followed was loads of commentary about the moment and it hogged headlines for weeks.
Kimmel must have been good at his job that year because he was asked to host the Oscars again in 2018.
When asked why the Academy wanted him back for a third time, he told THR: "I don’t know, it kind of came out of the blue and they clearly got me at the right moment. I did wait a week to tell my wife.
"I thought she might react negatively, but she was very positive, so I said, 'OK, yeah, I’ll do it.'"
So, the funnyman TV host will be hoping and praying that the night goes smoothly and that all the headlines will be about something other than his jokes.