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Almost a year ago, Will Smith took to the stage at the Dolby Theater and pissed off host Chris Rock in the middle of the Oscars – all for the crime of cracking a joke shifted on the hairstyle of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. . Surely you know what happened next: Instead of removing him from the hall, the Academy allowed Smith to stay, which led to a surreal and disjointed acceptance speech (through tears) when he won the Best Actor Oscar for King Richard later that night. At an after party, an inebriated Smith was caught on video beaming as he danced with the Oscar winner to his hit “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.”
While Smith took months to post a video apology for The Slap, and recently poked fun at it in a TikTok, Rock kept relatively low-key on the episode, turning down interviews — and an offer to return as host of this year’s Oscars – and recording his response for the stand-up stage. On the evening of March 4, Rock released his new stand-up special Chris Rock: Selective Outrage on Netflix, marking the first time the streamer has aired a live stand-up concert. The show, which took place in Baltimore, Maryland (the hometown of Jada Pinkett Smith, surely just a coincidence), contained Rock’s most outspoken response to the slap seen “around the world.” .
Dressed in all white, as if he had just left the filming of the clip for “I Want It That Way”, the actor went on stage to thunderous applause.
“I’m going to try to put on a show tonight without offending anyone,” he announced, adding, “Because you never know who might be triggered.”
The centerpiece of Rock’s special is the concept of “selective outrage,” where people “cancel” others for certain things while letting people slide for a similar offense, like when people play Michael Jackson but don’t play not R. Kelly because one of them has “better songs”.
After tackling the hypocrisy of “woke” corporations, the attention economy (from a stand-up comic, ironically enough), the grievance of white men exposed in the Jan. 6 riot, Meghan Markle, the Kardashians, abortion and how Elon Musk’s body ‘looks so weird’ due to lack of sperm from getting his dick sucked all the time, Rock has addressed to the elephant in the room for ten minutes.
“You know what happened to me. Getting hit by Suge Smith,” he remarked. “Everybody knows. Fucking world, everybody knows…I got slammed at the Oscars by that motherfucker and people are like, ‘Does that hurt?’ It still hurts! I have ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears!
“But I’m not a victim, baby. You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying. You will never see it,” he said. ” It will never happen. No. Fuck that shit. I took that hit like Pacquiao, motherfucker. I took it like a fucking Pacquiao, okay? Shit, man. Does it hurt? Yeah, asshole. It hurts.”
He continued: “I know you can’t tell the camera: Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. We’re not the same size, okay? We are not. Will Smith does shirtless movies. You’ve never seen me make a movie without my shirt on. If I’m in the movie having open-heart surgery, I’m wearing a sweater. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie! Do you think I auditioned for this role? He played Muhammad Ali, I played Pookie in Jack’s New Town! I played a piece of corn in Pootie Tang!”
He then accused Smith of practicing “selective outrage” and addressed their viral “entanglements” in the Red Table Talk interview where Jada Pinkett Smith spoke with her husband about his affair with singer August Alsina.
“Anyone who really knows knows I had nothing to do with that shit. I had no ‘tangles’. I did not do it. I had no “tangles,” he said. “And for people who don’t know… Will Smith’s wife was fucking her son’s friend.” Normally I wouldn’t talk about this shit, but for some reason these niggas put this shit on the internet. I don’t know why two talented people would do something so low. What is this ? We’ve all been deceived – everyone here has been deceived – none of us have been interviewed by the person who deceived us on TV. None of us! ‘Hey, I was sucking someone else’s dick. How did that make you feel?
“Why the hell would you do that shit?” Rock asked. “She hurt him more than he hurt me, okay?” And by the way, he does this shit and everyone in the world called him a bitch. I tried to call that motherfucker and give him my condolences (but) he didn’t answer me,” he said, adding. “Everyone called him a bitch. Everyone. And who did he hit? Me… This is shit. Damn, that’s what happened, okay? Fuck it here, man! I’m not doing anything to this motherfucker.
Rock then went into the backstory of why the Smiths were mad at Rock – for a joke he made while hosting the 2016 Oscars, which the Smiths boycotted and urged Rock to quit. as a host.
“Jada said she wasn’t coming out of the protest. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada is going to boycott the Oscars? Jada is boycotting the Oscars, it’s like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited! he joked at the time.
“Fuck, she said, ‘He should quit because Will wasn’t nominated for Concussion.’ What is this ? So, I made some jokes about it. Who cares ? It’s like that. She starts it, I finish it, okay? he says during Selective outrage. ” That’s what happened. Nobody’s picking on that bitch. She started this shit. Nobody takes it out on her. No one took it out on her. She said I, a grown man, should quit her job because her husband wasn’t nominated for Concussion, and then this guy gives me a fucking concussion, okay? Damn, man!
Rock went on to say, “My whole life I’ve been rooting for that motherfucker. And now I look Emancipation just to see him get booed. You’re rooting me for Massa, okay? Hit him again, Massa! Hit it again! You missed a spot! A lot of people say, ‘Chris, how come you didn’t get anything back? How come you didn’t do anything that night? Because I have parents. And you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people!
He then slammed the mic on the floor and, his eyes filled with tears, picked up the adulation of the crowd.