This Will Smith Look-Alike Receives Thousands of Offers To Recreate Chris Rock Slap
Will Smith's look-alike is now savoring success after the actor's infamous blunder at the 2022 Oscars.
Since Smith slapped Chris Rock in front of the audience members, the actor has since suffered from consequences that crippled his career. He resigned from the Academy and even had his supposed flicks postponed, including "Bad Boys 4" and "Fast and Loose."
His look-alike, Shad Ellis, feared that his job might also be in jeopardy following the assault - but the opposite happened instead.
In a new interview with The Sun, Ellis shared his fears about losing his stand-in work after the actor's projects were halted. But he reportedly experienced the opposite and received thousands of offers to impersonate the slap.
"I've had more inquiries and bookings this week than I've had in quite some time," the 43-year-old said. "It's that age-old saying that any publicity is good publicity, right?"
Ellis has been impersonating the "King Richard" actor for 25 years. He almost gave up on his role, but the controversial assault caused his bookings to soar.
The impersonator reportedly received requests from the video message website, Cameo, where fans ask him to say "Keep my wife's name out your f**king mouth", as Smith warned Rock for $90 and up.
He added that he received an offer of $5,000 from a social media influencer with 29 million followers. The internet personality reportedly wanted to fly him to Los Angeles to film a parody of the Smith and Rock's incident.
Shad Ellis Receives Non-Stop Requests
Aside from the requests online, Ellis reportedly receives calls on his phone. The booking requests come in from the UK, Europe, and the US.
Recently, he came back from an event in Cardiff. Ellis is about to fly to Germany on Friday and return on Sunday to appear in another event in Birmingham.
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"The requests are just flooding in all the time ... I've also had offers for things involving slaps in the face, like, 'can you talk about this product and say if they don't buy it then they're going to get slapped in the face', but I've turned anything like that down because I don't want to be disrespectful of the situation," he said.
Ellis, in the end, turned down all the requests to recreate the infamous slap, saying that he does not want to kick someone even more when they are always down.
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