Chris Rock Brings Jada Back Into the Conversation

Comedian weighs in on Oscars slap in new special
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2023 7:48 AM CST
Chris Rock Finally Dishes on Oscars Slap
Chris Rock appears at the Television Critics Association Winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 9, 2020.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Chris Rock didn't devote his whole live-streamed show Saturday night to the infamous Oscars slap, but he spoke about the incident more than he has previously. Both Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith ended up as targets in the Netflix show. Some of the lines, via the AP, CNN, People, and the Washington Post:

  • “You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith. Everybody knows," said Rock. "It still hurts. I got ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears." (That's an old rap hit by Smith.)
  • “We are not the same size. This guy does movies with his shirt off,” said Rock. “You will never see me do a movie with my shirt off. If I'm in a movie getting open-heart surgery, I got on a sweater.”
  • “I love Will Smith. Now I watch Emancipation just to see him get whooped." (Smith plays a slave in the film.)

  • "Will Smith practices selective outrage. Everybody that really knows knows I had nothing to do with that s---. I didn't have any 'entanglements.'" That's a reference to Pinkett Smith's public admission a few years ago that she had an "entanglement" with another man while married. "She hurt him way more than he hurt me.”
  • Rock also referenced a flap with Pinkett Smith in 2016, when she called on him not to host the Oscars during the "#OscarsSoWhite" controversy. He hosted anyway. "I did some jokes about her. Who gives a f---? That's how it is: She starts it, I finish it." (The Post predicts that Rock's take that Pinkett Smith started all this will be "debated in the days ahead.")
  • “I'm a not a victim, baby," said Rock. "You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying. You will never see it. Never going to happen.”
  • Rock said people keep asking him why he didn't fight back. “Because I got parents. You know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people.”
(More Chris Rock stories.)

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