Will Smith has reportedly 'tried unsuccessfully' to make amends with Chris Rock after Oscars slap

Will Smith wants to make amends with Chris Rock after the heavily-discussed slap that occurred at the 94th Academy Awards last year.

A source told PEOPLE that the Oscar-winning King Richard star has "felt terrible for so long" for striking Rock onstage after the latter made a joke about wife Jada Pinkett Smith. "He's tried unsuccessfully to make amends in the best way he could with Chris," the source said.

"But beyond that, family is important to him," the source added, noting that Smith "leaned on" family — also comprised of sons Trey and Jaden and daughter Willow — in the aftermath of the incident. "It all has helped him look inside and mature. He is better but still remorseful."

Reps for Smith and Pinkett Smith didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; Al Seib /A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images Will Smith; Chris Rock

Rock, for his part, remained publicly quiet in the months that followed after the altercation, but he recently broke his silence in his newly-released special Selective Outrage, Netflix's first live-streamed event. He called both Smith and Pinkett Smith "b----es" and made a joke about tuning into Smith's slave drama Emancipation to watch him "get whooped."

"Will Smith has selective outrage," Rock said. "Everybody that really knows knows I had nothing to do with that s---. I didn't have any 'entanglements.'" The term refers to headlines that Pinkett Smith had an affair with a friend of their son, which the married couple openly discussed during an episode of Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk in 2020.

"She hurt him way more than he hurt me," Rock continued in the special. "Everybody called him a b---- and who did he hit? Me." He concluded the set, "A lot of people go 'Chris, how come you didn't do nothing back, how come you didn't do nothing back that night?' 'Cause I got parents, that's why. Cause I was raised. I got parents and you know what my parents taught me? Don't fight in front of white people!"

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