Emmy Awards host Kenan Thompson and the ceremony’s producers are predicting a conflict-free zone, unlike the Oscars show that was marred by an on-stage slap.
Thompson said the confrontation last March in which Will Smith attacked presenter Chris Rock over a joke directed at Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was both unsettling and avoidable.
“It kind of just threw the entire world off guard, basically, and that won’t happen again,” Thompson told The Associated Press. “Even if I am roasting (someone), it shouldn’t come across as any sort of malice.”
If a joke ends up stinging, he said, an apology and conversation may be in order. But Rock — who “doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” Thompson said — or any other comic shouldn’t expect a reaction like Smith’s to a quip.
A first-time Emmy host, the veteran “Saturday Night Live” cast member is following in the footsteps of other
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