“I’ve spent the last three months replaying and understanding the nuances and the complexities of what happened in that moment. I’m not going to try and unpack all of that right now, but I can say to all of you that there is no part of me that thinks [the slap] was the right way to behave in that moment.

“I was fogged out at that point. It’s all fuzzy.

“I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk. And when he is, he will reach out.

“To all my fellow nominees…you know, this is a community, [and] it’s like I won because you voted for me, and it really breaks my heart to have stolen and tarnished your moment…[and] ‘I’m sorry’ really isn’t sufficient.” — Will Smith in 7.29.22 video.

HE thoughts: Okay, you’re a decent, good-hearted person, we realize that, and you’re genuinely sorry, especially as far as Chris Rock and his family and friends are concerned. Fine.

Most of us, I’m presuming, have mulled it over and said to ourselves, “Wow, that was weird but whatever.” Slaps and punches are not stupendous tragedies in and of themselves. But the venue was inappropriate, to say the least.

So here we are four months later, and yet you’ve only been drilling down and deeply examining that moment for three months, you’re saying, or since late April. So after the most emotionally intense and chaotic moment of your life, or at least since your difficult youth in West Philly, you were avoiding the process of self-examination during the first four weeks?

But now, four months later, you’ve posted a contrite video, and one of your main statements is “I’m not going to try and unpack all of that right now.” You’re not? When do you think you might get around to that? Because that’s the thing you need to share.

Without any beating around the bush you need to answer a key question — “what the hell happened deep down, and more particularly why?”

Most of us are under an impression that your emotional eruption was fed by two simmering volcanoes — your dad’s tumultuous behavior when you were a kid**, and a long-simmering Will and Jada thing that you never quite put to bed. Maybe it’s something else but whatever it is, you need to dig down and just say it.

Like a complex character delivering a big hairball speech in the third act, you need to cough it up.

** One thing I wrote after the 3.27 Oscar telecast was “you can take the man out of West Philly, but you can’t take West Philly out of the man.”