Chris Rock had maintained his silence after being slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars 2022 (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
Chris Rock has finally addressed the infamous Oscars slap for the first time in a Netflix special, while also not hesitating to roast Will Smith and Jada Pinkett live on-stage.
The Everybody Hates Chris creator made history on Saturday night when his new Netflix stand-up – Chris Rock: Selective Outrage – live-streamed on the platform, making the comic the first artist to perform a live show on the service.
During the hour-long show, Chris, 58, explained how the title for his Netflix special had connections to Will, 54, and poked fun at the actor’s wife Jada, 51, making the bombshell admission in 2020 that she had an ‘entanglement’ with singer August Alsina while she and Will were on a break, a revelation the pair later discussed on her Red Table Talk show.
‘Will Smith practices selective outrage. Everybody that really knows knows I had nothing to do with that s***. I didn’t have any entanglements,’ Chris told the audience who were in hysterics throughout the whole bit.
He continued: ‘His wife was f****** her son’s friend. Now, I normally would not talk about this s***, but for some reason, these n***** put that s*** on the internet. I have no idea why two people that talented would do something that low-down.
‘We all been cheated on. Everybody in here has been cheated on. None of us have ever been interviewed by the person that cheated on us on television. None of us. … Why the f*** would you do that s***? She hurt him way more than he hurt me, okay?’
Chris claimed ‘everybody in the world’ called Will ‘a b****’ after the ‘entanglement’ revelation and said he tried to get in touch with him but the actor didn’t pick up.
He quipped: ‘Everybody. And who’s he hit? Me, a n**** he knows he can beat. That is some b****-a** s***.’
Chris then dropped the mic and got a standing ovation before walking offstage.
The comic also referred to a dispute he had with Will and Jada after he hosted the Oscars in 2016. Chris recalled how Jada told him not to host the ceremony because of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and Will’s lack of nomination for Concussion.
‘I did some jokes about her. Who gives a f***? That’s how it is: She starts it, I finish it,’ he said.
Chris joked the slap ‘still hurts’ a year later (Picture: Getty Images)
Will has publicly apologised for the incident (Picture: Getty Images)
‘That’s what the f*** happened. Nobody’s pickin’ on this b****. She started this s***. Nobody was pickin’ on her…. And then this n**** gives me a concussion!
‘I love Will Smith… he makes great movies. I rooted for Will Smith my whole life. And now, I watched Emancipation just so I could watch him get whooped.’
Addressing the shocking Oscars moment where Will stormed the stage and slapped Chris across the face for joking about Jada’s shaved head, despite the fact she has alopecia, the comedian explained that he didn’t retaliate as he was raised not to ‘fight in front of white people’.
He added: ‘Everybody f*****’ knows. Yes, it happened, like a year ago, I got smacked at the f****** Oscars by this motherf*****.
‘People are like, “Did it hurt?” It still hurts! I’ve got Summertime ringing in my ears.
‘[But] you will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying. Never gonna happen. I took that hit like Pacquiao, motherf*****.’
The special comes almost a year after the Oscars slap in March 2022, which resulted in Will being banned from the Academy for 10 years. Shortly after the incident, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air actor won the best actor Oscar for his role in King Richard.
He issued a publicly apology to Chris and has since admitted that past trauma ‘bubbled up in that moment’ which he regrets.
Chris Rock: Selective Outrage is available to watch on Netflix now.
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It was brutal.