Tyrese Gibson is the latest celebrity to weigh in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and has urged Chris Rock to bow out of his hosting duties over the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominees this year.
"There is no joke that he can crack. There is no way for him to seize the moment and come into this thing and say, 'I'm going to say this and say that I'm going to address the issue but then I'm still going to keep my gig as the host,'" Gibson said, according to People. "The statement that you make is that you step down."
The "Furious 7" actor then compared the situation to an LGBT issue, stating that if members of the LGBT community were under-represented at the Academy Awards, things would be different. "If the host Chris Rock was a homosexual he would have stepped down already," he said, according to USA Today.
Gibson also praised Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith for voicing their opinion and speaking out against the Academy after no people of color were included in the 20 acting nominations. "If you have a problem with feeling like you're being excluded, all across the board, you don't just sit on your hands and complain," he said. "You fix it."
The actor added that he feels bad for this year's nominees, including Leonardo DiCaprio, whose achievements might be overshadowed by the Oscars controversy. "I feel bad on behalf of Leo that I believe this is going to be the year that he finally wins an Oscar for best actor and this is all going down," he said.
Gibson had one last thing to say before the interview ended. "This is not us saying we're against the Oscars because we're gonna combat racism," he said. "We're just saying, 'Yo, this is not cool.' You can't be doing this in 2016 and act as if no one is gonna notice."
A photo posted by TYRESE (@tyrese) on Jan 19, 2016 at 11:12am PST
