(Los Angeles) A year after being slapped by Will Smith in front of a global audience, American comedian Chris Rock finally fought back on Saturday, unleashing his punches in a number of stand up broadcast on the Netflix platform.
In March 2022, the American actor took 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 on stage Saturday night in Baltimore, he went off the rails, accusing the Hollywood star of “selective outrage”, and claiming he went after a lesser 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.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NETFLIX VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
He recalled that Will Smith was widely mocked after an episode of his wife’s Facebook show, Red Table Tgalkin which the couple opened up about the affair she had and how it affected the 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.”
According to Chris Rock, Jade 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 had not been nominated for his film. Concussion in 2015.
“She said… a grown man should give up his job because her husband was not named for Concussion [commotion cérébrale]. Afterwards, [Smith] gives me a concussion,” he joked. ” What is this mess ? So I made jokes about it? We do not care ! “.
” People [me] ask “Does it hurt? ”. It still hurts, ”he said, referring to the slap received.
“Will Smith is definitely bigger than me. Will Smith played the role of Muhammad Ali in a film. You think I auditioned for this? “, 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 he’s siding with the slave master who beats Will Smith’s character in his latest film, Emancipation.