Chris Rock Debuts A New Comedy Special, And It's Expected To Talk About Will Smith's Oscar Slap

By Jake Coyle -

One year after he was slapped on the Oscars stage by Will Smith, Chris Rock is about to talk about it.

The 58-year-old comedian will present his first special monologue since last year's Oscars on Saturday night.

This is

, a program that will be broadcast live on Netflix.

Rock will not only present nearly an hour of monologues from Baltimore's Hippodrome Theater, but Netflix, in its first live show, will round out the special with star commentary.

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The pre-show, starting at 9:30 p.m., will feature Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew McConaughey, Cedric the Entertainer, Ice-T, and two presenters from last year's Oscars: Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer.

After the Rock set, Dana Carvey and David Spade will receive guests such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Arsenio Hall and JB Smoove.

Although Smith has repeatedly apologized and spoken out about the incident since last March, Rock has avoided all the usual platforms that celebrities go to to express their feelings.

["I'm Not A Victim": Comedian Chris Rock Talks Will Smith Slapped Him At The Oscars]

She has never sat down with Oprah Winfrey, and she has turned down many media outlets who would have loved to get an exclusive interview on the subject.

Instead, Rock has spent much of the past year introducing new material in a long series of performances on his

tour .

The shows, announced ahead of the 2022 Oscars, have featured performances by Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart.

Rock has often made jokes and musings about the slap, though it's never been more than a fixture in his shows.

There's no guarantee he'll talk about it Saturday night, but it's expected that he will and he's long suggested it would be the ideal scenario.

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Rock first broke his public silence on the slap three nights after last year's Oscars ceremony in Boston.

"How was the weekend?" he asked the audience.

And he added that he was still "processing what happened."

Now, having prosecuted it, Rock will step into the cultural spotlight just a week before the Oscars on March 12, at which this year's host Jimmy Kimmel is sure to talk about the slap again.

[Will Smith's slap to Chris Rock eclipses the best actor Oscar he dreamed of for years]

Following the events of last year, Smith resigned from the Film Academy.

The academy's board of governors banned Smith from attending the Oscars and any other academy event for a decade.

At the annual nominees luncheon last month, Film Academy President Janet Yang lamented the way the incident was handled, calling the Academy's response "inadequate."

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Bill Kramer, CEO of the Academy, has stated that a crisis communication team has been created to prepare for and respond more quickly to the unexpected.

Selective Outrage

is Rock's second Netflix special, following 2018's

. They are part of a $40 million two-special deal that Rock signed with the platform in 2016.

While its rivals have entered live streaming and sports,

marks Netflix's first foray into live programming.

Netflix, with 231 million subscribers worldwide, has also recently signed on to rebroadcast next year's Screen Actors Guild Awards, signaling that

may just be the start of a new trend.