Jimmy Kimmel talks Oscar slap in the face with Grim, Grisly Jokes before the show

The late-night funny man did a ton of press in the weeks leading up to the big gig – his third time handling MC duties for Hollywood’s biggest show – and yes… he was repeatedly asked about Will Smith spanking Chris Rockand how he will fix it.

Here are some quotes from JK from the last two weeks or so. When asked by THR what he would do if someone tried to pull a copycat and slap them, Kimmel said … “If I’m bigger than them, I beat them on TV. What if it’s Le Rocher, I’m running.”

A few days ago, while preparations were underway, Kimmel made another carnage joke … in reference to the color of this year’s walk-up. He said: “People have been asking, ‘Will there be any problems this year? Will there be violence this year? “”

He adds: “We certainly hope not. But if so, I think the decision to go for a champagne carpet over a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed.”

In other words, he swore brutality teasing the possibility of more, albeit jokingly. On the question of bringing it up in his monologue, Jimmy says he will.

He’s said in interviews he’s going to “get a few more drops out of it” and give a take he thinks no one has heard yet. Kimmel noted that he doesn’t plan to talk about it at length, but says it’s the elephant in the room and needs to be addressed.

As for the whole crisis team thing – namely, AMPAS hires a group of people to “handle” any craziness that may occur – JK says he is unaware of this…and knows nothing of the logistics of what they planned or how they would implement it if things went wrong.

It’s interesting that Jimmy shed some light on the slap as much as he did, and will probably do it again at 5 p.m. You have to understand that ABC and the Academy approved the whole thing… they’re the producers and showrunners of this thing, and they’re calling the shots.