Thousands of Twitter users attacked the wrong Will Smith following the 'King Richard' actor's Oscars dust up with Chris Rock

• A man who shares the same name as actor Will Smith — and is also Twitter verified — is getting slammed on Twitter.
• This comes after the actor had slapped Rock over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars.

A red-haired podcaster named Will Smith became the object of a Twitter pile-on after his account was mistaken for that of Hollywood actor Will Smith — and the mix-up has garnered him thousands of new Twitter followers.

Will Smith, the "King Richard" actor, was embroiled in controversy Sunday night after walking on stage during a monologue by Chris Rock and slapped the comedian, admonishing him for making comments about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

While presenting the award for best documentary feature, Rock made a joke aimed at Pinkett Smith. Rock said he couldn't "wait for G.I. Jane 2," an apparent dig at Pinkett Smith's baldness.

Pinkett Smith has spoken out in the past about dealing with alopecia, a disease in which the body attacks its own hair follicles, causing hair loss.

Following the comment, Smith walked on stage and appeared to slap Rock before walking back to his chair while yelling, "Keep my wife's name out of your f-----g mouth!"

But back to that other Smith.

Will Smith, the "Men In Black" actor, doesn't appear to have a verified Twitter account (though his children Jaden and Willow and his wife Jada all do). That may be why this other Will Smith was erroneously thrust into the middle of the fray.

Non-famous Smith, who works in communications for video game developer Stray Bombay and identifies as a dad, husband, and Twitch player, tweeted Sunday night: "Real talk, I'm not the person you're upset/happy with. I make podcasts and video games for a living."

"At the risk of making people pissed off at me instead of that other guy, the world would be a better place if we stopped answering words with violence," he continued.

Even though his profile picture — the avatar of a man with red hair, beard, and glasses — should have been enough to differentiate him from the newly-minted Oscar winner, he received numerous angry tweets from people who believed otherwise.

It probably did not help that he jokingly sent out a few tweets pretending to be the actor in this Twitter thread, which is still getting hundreds of likes every few seconds.

"Whelp. I'm sorry you're offended," Smith began, to which multiple people responded in anger.

"You're sorry if we're offended? Is that how the impact of violence throws blame to the witnesses of it?" one person replied before receiving a response from another user to say that they've basically "got the wrong guy."

Another user replied to the tweet to say that the slap was "totally uncalled for" and that "we will never be playing another Will Smith movie again."

But it's not all bad news: As of press time, non-actor Smith had gained around 30,000 new Twitter followers, he said.

Will Smith, the podcaster, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.