A year after being slapped by Will Smith in front of a global audience, Chris Rock fired back on Saturday, unleashing his punches in a stand-up number airing on Netflix.
In March 2022, the American actor took to the Oscars stage and hit the comedian who had just made fun of the very short haircut of his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia.
A few minutes later, Will Smith received the Oscar for best actor for his role in
King Richard
.
He then apologized to Chris Rock, but was banned from the Oscars, the next edition of which will take place on March 12, for a decade.
The comedian refused to file a complaint and has kept almost total silence on the incident since.
But onstage Saturday night in Baltimore, he went off the rails, accusing the Hollywood star of
“selective outrage
,” and claiming he lashed out at a smaller man because he was upset that his wife cheated on him.
“Will Smith practices selective outrage
,” said Chris Rock during this show broadcast live on Netflix, a first for the platform.
He recalled that Will Smith was widely mocked after an episode of his wife's Facebook TV show, Red Table Tgalk, in which the couple discussed the affair she had and how it affected the relationship. actor.
"Why do that ?"
he asked.
“Everyone called him a bitch.
They called his wife a predator
,” he said, noting that he tried to support the actor when the information became public.
A conflict that does not date from yesterday
According to Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith's animosity against him goes back to an event that occurred a few years earlier, when she called on him to boycott the Oscars because her husband hadn't been nominated for his film Concussion (
Alone
against
all
in France) in 2015.
“She said…a grown man should quit his job because her husband was not named for
Concussion
.
Then (Smith) gives me a concussion
, he joked.
What is this mess ?
So I made jokes about it?
We do not care !"
"People ask (me) 'Does it hurt?'
It still hurts”
, he said, in reference to the slap received.
Read alsoWill Smith's popularity rating in freefall since the slap in the face of the Oscars
“Will Smith is definitely bigger than me. He played the role of Muhammad Ali in a movie. You think I auditioned for that?
, he launched.
The comedian, who sometimes seemed angry during his show, said that before the slap, he had always liked Will Smith, first as a rapper and then as an actor.
“He had made great films.
I've supported Will Smith all my life
. "
But now he's said to side with the slave master who beats Will Smith's character in his latest film,
Emancipation
.