r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 13h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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274

u/mrfuzzyshorts 11h ago

Will Smith

132

u/No-Cartographer-7614 9h ago

Crazy to think that the biggest and worst moment of his career both happened on the same night.

45

u/CryptographerMore944 8h ago

I forgot he won the award for quite a while and had to be reminded.

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u/ImmortalMoron3 3h ago

I was just thinking about this the other day and went and looked at what he's done since which is not much. It really could've been a nice career renaissance for him if he'd just kept his hands to himself.

It's rare you see someone win Best Actor and then do fuck all afterwards. He has some slavery movie he'd already filmed before winning that got awful reviews and another Bad Boys, thats it.

21

u/NOT-packers-fan2022 7h ago

One could argue it was his wedding night 🤷🏾‍♂️

25

u/digitaldeadstar 9h ago

I say this every time this comes up, but it's absolutely wild to me that the whole slapping thing was such a massive hit to his career. Like, I get that it was a bit out of line, but it also wasn't that big of a deal. He slapped him once, talked a bit of shit and then it was over. He didn't keep hitting him, didn't keep talking shit, didn't let it really carry over past that moment. Compared to all the other shit that goes on in Hollywood, this is practically nothing.

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u/No-Cartographer-7614 9h ago

I guess it’s mostly because the Oscars is the biggest night of one of the most visible industries in the world, and everything was captured on camera.
If they had fought, maybe at an after party or something, it wouldn’t have been made into such a big deal.

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u/Squidwina 8h ago

It’s not just that it was on live TV. It’s that the Oscars are a giant PR event for the film industry. The Oscars are a very important event, not because they are some kind of objective means of rewarding the best, but because actors and movies winning, being nominated, or just being included makes for top-notch promotional material for the current crop of films, but for the future and even the past.

The audience is performing as much as the presenters and award recipients. They laugh at the corny jokes. They smile and clap when they lose. They cheer for people and films they dislike.

For Will Smith to march up on stage abd do something like that during the film industry’s biggest PR event of the year was QUITE remarkable.

25

u/Numerous_Release9273 8h ago

Also he was letting his wife jerk him around in all sorts of humiliating ways. The general public was not aware of this until the slap made it all very, very public. As far as his reputation went the slap was a big mistake.

7

u/Nyoteng 8h ago

Perfectly put.

6

u/Porn-Again-Christian 6h ago

I wonder if it also has more effect not just directly because it's important in that industry, but also indirectly because that means it was seen by everyone at once.

In a lot of controversies that happen with celebrities, people find out about them gradually as they go viral, over days or even weeks. With the Oscars, since it was live and everyone was already watching, pretty much everyone in the world found out within the span of just a few hours. I think that amplifies everything; it just builds huge momentum in a feedback loop.

31

u/renegadecanuck 9h ago

I think it was a combination of things that ended up causing that reaction. He laughed at first, then lost his mind when Jada rolled her eyes, so his anger seemed like white knighting. Then his Oscar acceptance speech was completely non self aware when he talked about love and peace and such.

Then I think what really hurt him (which is bad) is people talking about how his wife cheated on him and all that and he was still so upset about it. It basically got him labeled as a cuck, and it made him "a little bitch" or something.

22

u/ATLienNumber9 8h ago

Its video. Not just video in this case but live TV.

Look no further than the NFL to see that some of the most heinous and vile shit can be excused but if your crime is on video you are done.

I think we are just wired to make excuses for people internally in our heads when there is plausible deniability due to a lack of video.

But when you see something on screen then no excuses can be made.

What we all witnessed was a 53 year old man assault a comedian on stage for a harmless joke. There aren't many people who can relate to that.

2

u/ImmortalMoron3 3h ago

Look no further than the NFL to see that some of the most heinous and vile shit can be excused but if your crime is on video you are done.

100%. Ray Rice would've kept playing for a while if he hadn't been caught on the security camera.

9

u/Spaghet-3 8h ago

Situations where a public outburst confirms underlying rumors have a massive multiplying effect, where the total ends up being more than the sum of the parts. There were a lot of cuck jokes and rumors going around due to the cheating; but it was only jokes and rumors. His public outburst confirmed it, very publicly. The jokes and rumors alone were small and would have passed. The outburst, as you said, was brief and fairly benign. Individually it doesn't add up to much, but the multiplying effect made it huge.

2

u/notalotathota 2h ago

>He slapped him once, talked a bit of shit and then it was over.

And he couldn't even be original in his shit talking.

He stole that line from a TV show.

•

u/HandsomeGemini 47m ago

Yeah, it was just a little slap, not even a punch. He didn't chase black kids around yelling "little n-words" or beat a blind man to near death for being Asian like Marky Mark did.

•

u/Call_me_Tomcat 1m ago

It was a bitch move that made me lose any semblance of respect for him. 

Meanwhile the host just turned the other cheek and laughed it off, solidifying how much of a fucking clown Smith was in that moment. 

The fact that he wasn't escorted out by security still baffles me. Talk about privilege. 

Commit a crime on live TV : zero legal repercussions. 

I actively avoid anything he's a part of now. Fuck that cuckold. 

13

u/Scottyflamingo 7h ago

I feel sorry for Smith. Needs to get out of that trainwreck "marriage".

5

u/Ok-Craft4844 1h ago

Tbh, given the other entries here - murderers, rapists, nazi - having punched someone once seems pretty tame.

Not that I'd condone violence, but come on. I've seen worse.

3

u/JBSven 6h ago

I don't consider him a villain. Just dumb.

9

u/NobleKorhedron 11h ago

I understood him slapping Chris Rock, but but hate him for supporting Scientology...

9

u/chef-nom-nom 5h ago

I don't know, showing violence as a response to a verbal jab is a pretty bad example to give when so many young people looked up to him.

2

u/NobleKorhedron 3h ago

Fair point.

23

u/commodorecliche 10h ago

Dang he supports scientology too? I missed that.

12

u/NobleKorhedron 10h ago

He's not as public about it as Tom Cruise, but he IS a member...

1

u/ben-hur-hur 4h ago

Yeah that interview with Jada was cringe af. Man is a cuck.

1

u/obliviious 3h ago

I feel bad for him, that reaction screams a cowed man in an abusive relationship who's been punished for not standing up for his wife.

Victims will do some crazy shit.