If it isn’t a Nashville awards show touting top country music performers and incredible songwriters, odds are I’m not settled in on the living room couch, tuned in with my feet propped up.

My husband and I typically see only a few new movies a year at the theater. And our home streaming services are limited to HBO Max and Netflix, so these days there are few motion pictures that I am familiar with or, at least, was rooting for to win this year’s best motion picture Oscar.

Sure, like most everyone, I enjoy a good show. But when I tuned in briefly before the Oscars began last Sunday, it was more to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood gowns and styles that I would never wear — and definitely NOT because I was gleefully awaiting scripted jokes and celebrity acceptance speeches.

In fact, not long after the show got underway, I tuned out.

That’s why I was so baffled when I opened the newspaper with breakfast Monday to find the word “fight” in the headline above the Oscar story and a photo of Will Smith laying one on Chris Rock.

Why, I wondered, would my Sunday night newsroom crew have made such a big deal over a scripted joke?

Now, I admit, I only glanced at the wire story and didn’t read it closely before moving on to the next page.

It wasn’t until a bit later that morning, when I was scrolling through social media on my cellphone, that I started seeing all the chatter about Will Smith smacking Chris Rock.

Holy smoke! What on earth did I miss last night?!

In case you’ve been living in a cave all week, Chris Rock had made a joke from the stage of L.A.’s Dolby Theatre about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head. The audience, and even Will Smith, laughed for a very brief moment. But there was really nothing to laugh about because Pinkett Smith has a shaved head because she suffers from a medical condition, alopecia, that causes hair loss.

A second later, after Will Smith caught the pained look on his wife’s face, he stood and stormed the stage in his stylish black tuxedo, and laid a hard smack on Chris Rock’s face. He returned to his seat and shouted expletives across the theatre about Rock keeping his wife’s name out of his mouth.

According to The Associated Press story that we published Monday (which I later read in its entirety) at the awards show’s commercial break, some of those present, including actor Denzel Washington, escorted Smith to the side of the stage to hug and speak to him.

And, as is always the case in Hollywood, the show must go on.

As luck would have it, Smith ended up winning his first Oscar, the award for best actor for his portrayal of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams’ father in the movie “King Richard.”

During his acceptance speech, Smith shared what Washington had told him:

“At your highest moment, be careful because that’s when the devil comes for you.”

Indeed, the advice echoed the words of Peter in the New Testament: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

Granted, we all have acted out in moments of passion or anger. (Although, I’m not sure we all have physically struck someone, and a scant few of us can say we’ve ever done it in such a public way — with millions watching.)

But yes, at the end of the day, we all make very poor errors in judgment.

In my business, as I’ve said here in this space, we admit our errors, we correct them and we move on.

And while this column could quickly devolve into a lecture about how far our society has fallen, instead I’ll use this space to remind us all that physical assault is never, ever OK. Fair punishment should be doled out, as deserved.

But all humans error, and it’s the ability to forgive that helps us to move past it.

blinert@tribtoday.com