Nicole Kidman Becomes Instant Meme At The Oscars

A photo of a super-shocked Nicole Kidman at the Oscars has gone viral following an eventful evening that saw Will Smith slapping Chris Rock across the face.

Last night's awards saw Smith scoop the coveted Best Actor gong for his role in King Richard. However, earlier in the evening Smith stepped on stage for an entirely different reason after being less than happy with a joke Rock made about Smith's wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

After Rock compared Pinkett Smith to GI Jane, Smith walked onto the stage and slapped him, before sitting down and shouting: "Keep my wife's name out of your f***ing mouth."

As you can imagine, the dramatic scenes quickly went viral on social media and one shot of Kidman, looking like she can't believe what she's seeing, is also doing the rounds with many people thinking it's a full-on reaction to the slap.

The snap was actually taken earlier in the ceremony - but people aren't letting that get in the way of a good meme.

As for Smith, he went on to win the Best Actor award and issued an apology in his speech - though not to Rock directly.

He kicked off his acceptance speech by saying Williams was a 'fierce defender of his family'.

Smith continued: "I'm being called on in my life to love people. And to protect people and to be a river to my people.

"I know, to do what we do, you gotta be able to take abuse. You gotta be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you and you gotta smile and pretend like that's OK."

He went on: "I want to apologise to the Academy. I want to apologise to all my fellow nominees.

"This is a beautiful moment and I'm not crying for winning an award. It's not about winning an award for me.

"It's about being able to shine light on all the people, Tim [White, producer], Trevor [White, producer], Zach [Baylin, writer], Saniyya [Sidney], and Demi [Singleton] and Aunjanue [Ellis] of King Richard and Serena, the entire Williams family.

"Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams! But, love will make you do crazy things."

Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, Will Smith, Oscars