Not Only Did The Oscars 2023 Address The Slap, But They Also Brought Up The Spit

The infamous Will Smith versus Chris Rock slap wasn't the only 2022 pop culture moment 2023 Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel set his sights on during this year's ceremony. Jokes about Smith and Rock were a given, and unsurprisingly, Kimmel has been making jabs all evening about how the incident played out at last year's ceremony. But while this moment has long been dissected and discussed by Smith, Rock, Kimmel on his own talk show, and the Academy itself, another smaller reference may have slipped by viewers who were too busy having a groan at some of Kimmel's many rib ticklers.

The reference occurred quickly. When Kimmel found activist Malala Yousafzai in the audience, he asked her whether or not she believed that Harry Styles had spit on Chris Pine last year. And that was quite a throwback to a controversy that grabbed headlines for months in the fall of 2022 and left the internet's jaw on the floor.

Back in 2022, the press tour surrounding the surreal, feminist drama "Don't Worry Darling" snagged the attention of gossip hounds worldwide. There was awkwardness at the Venice film festival and rumors of tension between "Don't Worry Darling" lead Florence Pugh and the film's director, Olivia Wilde (which later proved to be untrue). And in the middle of all of it, a drop of spit seemed to fall from Harry Styles' mouth onto a horrified-looking Chris Pine at the film's premiere when the former passed by the latter to settle into his seat.

Much ink has been spilled as to what really went down in that moment, and many different opinions have been expressed. While Styles has never weighed in as to what exactly occurred, Chris Pine recently recalled the infamous spit for Esquire Magazine. For those wondering, Pine continues to maintain that he was not spat on during the events of that fateful day. "Harry did not spit on me. Harry's a very, very kind guy," he said to the magazine. 

Kind though Styles may be, it's still a moment that stands out in the minds of movie fans everywhere — and, apparently, in the mind of Jimmy Kimmel himself.