On Saturday night (3.04) at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre, one year following the Oscar-night slap heard ’round the world, Chris Rock finally addressed the infamous incident.
Following months of relative silence about actor Will Smith’s shocking assault on Rock during last year’s Academy Awards, (when the actor slapped the comedian, for telling a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith), the host addressed it during his live Netflix special in demonstrative and emphatic terms, stating “Y’all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith,”
Rock, who took the hit like boxer Manny Pacquiao, blamed Pinkett Smith’s “entanglements” for Smith’s outburst saying “His wife was [having sex with] her son’s friend. I normally would not talk about this. … But for some reason, [they] put that … on the internet.” “She hurt him way more than he hurt me.”
Chris added that Will’s masculinity was called into question, but it was Rock who wound up paying the price, saying “Everybody called him a b—-.” “And who’s he hit? Me. [Someone] he knows he can beat.”
Hardly spared from criticism, Rock said it all started after comments Jada made in 2016, when he was hosting the Oscars a previous time when she asked Rock not to host the awards because he husband was not nominated for his role in ‘Concussion’. “She starts it … I finish it,” Chris said.
Ending the very first live NetFlix special with words of wisdom from his parents that prevented him from fighting back after Smith slapped him, Rock said “I got parents. And you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of White people.”
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Author: Al Denté
Photo: Andy Witchger