Will Smith Compares Rise of Trump-Era GOP to ‘The Purge’: ‘Darkness Before the Dawn’

Actor talks politics during “Bright” press event

LA Premiere of Netflix Films "BRIGHT"
Rich Fury/Getty Images for Netflix

Will Smith got political at a press event for his upcoming Netflix film “Bright” on Wednesday, suggesting that the recent spate of bad news is a natural backlash to the optimism of the Obama-era.

“This is the purge, right?” Smith said, according to Indiewire. “This is the cleanse, this is what happens. This is the natural reaction to the amount of light that came into the world when Barack Obama was the president.”

Smith’s comments came a day after Democrat Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with minors, in Alabama’s U.S. Senate race. It also followed months of allegations of sexual assault, harassment and rape against some of the most powerful men in Hollywood and media.

“We had to expect that [the pendulum] was going to go the other way,” he said. “As a cleanse — this is the darkness before the dawn … I feel very, very strongly that we are shifting into what the next age of humanity is going to be right now,” he said. “It’s just the sh– has to get stirred up, in a way. We’re seeing it all.”

“It’s going to be really interesting to see how humanity reacts to it, and it’s going to be a f—ing mess,” he said. “It’s going to be a mess, but it’s the mess in the cleanup. It’s the mess and the purge before that new, real light shows up.”

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