Everyone seems to have an opinion on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars and one subset of people is claiming that it was all completely fake/staged with the goal of trying to make the Oscars relevant again and/or to distract from the current situation over in Ukraine. Or anything else that’s going on at the moment – it’s sort of unclear right now. To be fair though, it’s pretty much working in that respect as it’s dominating the headlines everywhere.

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One body language expert named Darren Stanton – who calls himself the ‘human lie detector’ – has insisted that it’s absolutely real judging by how everyone involved acted though. Take a read of what he had to say below:

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Once Chris Rock made the joke about Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, you could see a visible emotional shift within the couple.

The joke targeting Jada’s shaved head following her battle with alopecia, clearly made her uncomfortable and she showed signs in her face of awkwardness and disdain after being embarrassed in front of her peers and the world.

Will, on the other hand, made a slightly loose laugh and leant back in his chair, which is a sign of tension or uneasiness.

With his hands behind his back, Chris displayed a position of authority, like many police officers, politicians and other empowered people stand in certain situations.

He was also exposing most of his body and vital organs, a sign that there didn’t seem to be any imminent danger so he must have thought it was going to be a prank.

As Will Smith sat down, the first thing we notice is that he does what we call a chin thrust. This is a classic gesture of power and dominance, like animals do when defending their young.

We can also see flared nostrils, prolonged eye contact, which are signs of genuine anger. We also see him flash a micro-expression of disgust, in this instance his nostrils tail in as if he has sensed a bad smell.

There’s been a number of theories online that this confrontation was staged, however, gauging from the degree of anger that Will Smith was displaying, this was 100 percent genuine. You cannot fake that level of emotion.

Shots of Jada on the red carpet show her quite still and rigid, almost in a state of anger or humiliation, proved by her declining to appear in photos with her family.

Well, I suppose it is useful to listen to experts in these situations, but I suppose if you believe that it’s fake you can either argue that you’ve done your own research and know much better than these people, or just argue that they’re actually that good at acting so it was all a performance. Nobody knows anymore. Question everything. Believe nothing.

For more of the same, check out what Howard Stern makes of it all. You can take a guess can’t you?