Will Smith delivered the hardest lines of his career on Tuesday and he didn't even need to say them out loud.
The written statement included the apology to Chris Rock he couldn't bring himself to utter during his Oscars speech on Monday (NZ time) after he slapped the comedian for making a joke about his wife.
Then again, many observers felt Smith had done nothing wrong - as the world split into two camps; team Rock and team Smith.
It was the slap that has reverberated around the globe - immediately launching millions of memes.
But after the slap, Smith was soon back up on the stage - this time to accept his very first Oscar for his role in King Richard. He also delivered a speech that became round one of his public apologies.
For many in the audience, it was that speech and the standing ovation that followed that was the most shocking of all. New Zealand filmmaker and Academy member Pietra Brettkelly was perched behind the Smiths with an elevated view of the stage.
"When he won the award - I thought that was just horrendous actually," Brettkelly tells Newshub. "Appalling - on many levels.
"I think that, because the management, the producers, the Academy didn't react - people kind of thought, 'Well, this is kind of OK' and went with that. It was horrific.
"It was herd mentality on a ghastly, ghastly scale.
"We were all clear he'd hit him - it was really clear. You could hear it - you could hear the slap."
After a no-doubt sleepless night for Smith's publicists, he said in a statement on his Instagram that "violence in all its forms is poisonous and destructive". The Oscar winner said his behaviour was "unacceptable and inexcusable".
Smith then went on to apologise to Rock, saying he was out of line and wrong.
When it comes to entertaining the masses, there's no match for an Oscars box office hit from Smith.
Watch the full story above.
