Will Smith has sounded off on the infamous slap at the Oscars for the first time since his apology earlier this year on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. He said that he wanted to remind the audience that “you just never know what somebody is going through.” He also called the night “horrific.”

“At the end of the day, I just lost it,” he said.

Smith said he was dealing with something that Oscars night, which led to the slap.

“I was going through something that night. That doesn’t justify my behavior at all,” he said. “We just gotta be nice to each other man,” he added, holding a tissue. “It’s hard. I guess the thing that was most painful for me, is I took my heart and made it hard for other people. I understood the idea when they say hurt people hurt people.”

He added that in that moment, he became “the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, all of that bubbled up in that moment. That’s not who I want to be.”

Smith, who has started his promo tour for the upcoming film Emancipation, said that he had to explain his actions to his young nine-year-old nephew.

“He’s the sweetest little boy,” he said. “He stayed up late to see his Uncle Will. We are sitting in the kitchen, he’s on my lap holding the Oscar, [and he asked] ‘Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?'” Smith said, according to Deadline.

“I was like, it was a mess. I don’t want to go too far into it to give people more to misunderstand,” he continued.

To his credit, Noah defended Smith by saying that anyone can make a mistake, and he also called out the press and reaction Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has received, calling it “relentlessly shitty.” Noah particularly called out a recent poorly-received article by The Hollywood Reporter strangely and wrongly comparing Smith and Leticia Wright to other actors who have serious sexual and physical abuse allegations.

However, with tears, Smith said that he understands how it could have been shocking for viewers. He also added that he doesn’t want the Emancipation team, including director Antoine Fuqua will not be denied their opportunities because of his decision-making.

“The one thing that’s killing me–so, Emancipation is Antoine’s masterpiece. He has created an absolute masterpiece. Bob Richardson–the DP–and [actor] Ben Foster and all the way down, these top artists in the world have done some of the best work of their career and the idea that they might be denied because of me…that is killing me dead. The thing that is so critical for me is that these people came and they trusted me and they were down for me and you know, I just hope that their work will be honored and their work will not be tainted based on a horrific decision on my part.”

Watch the full interview below.