By: Lydia Tesfaye, Kristyna Ramirez, Marcela Carrillo and Noah Meadows
By: Kristyna Ramirez and Marcela Carrillo
“Keep my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth!”
Last year, these words by Will Smith echoed throughout Hollywood’s Dolby Theater several minutes after the actor walked on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock across the face during the 94th Oscars Ceremony.
In the Hollywood landscape, the slap truly was the slap heard around the world, as it became a black eye upon the movie industry’s most prestigious awards show.
Since the aforementioned slap, Will Smith had some of his ongoing projects put on hold, along with a 10-year ban from attending the Oscars Ceremony. Smith has since recovered from the controversy.
After a public apology tour, he announced the start of production for Bad Boys 4 alongside costar Martin Lawrence on January 31st of this year.
However, Chris Rock stayed silent since the slap, even opting not to press charges against the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor. Those were all of the developments of the situation until four days ago, on March 4th, when Rock recorded his newest comedy special, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” live on Netflix.
During Netflix’s first-ever live recorded comedy special, Rock spoke about several different subjects, from his daughter’s habit of biting people when she was younger to stores like Lululemon putting up anti-discriminatory signage. Chris Rock then talked about the slap situation for the remaining 15 minutes.
During his curse-filled monologue about the situation, Rock clarified that his joke at the Oscars was not the start of the beef between him and the Smith family.
“She [Jada Pinkett Smith] started it. I finished it. That’s what the f*** happened,” Rock said. “She said me, a grown-a** man, should quit his job because her husband didn’t get nominated for f***ing Concussion, and then [Will Smith] gives me a f***ing concussion, OK? What the f***, man.”
Rock also called out Smith for practicing what Rock called “selective outrage,” hence the name of the comedy special. “And for people that don’t know, and everybody knows, Will Smith’s wife was f***ing her son’s friend, OK? I normally would not talk about this s***, but for some reason [the Smith family] puts that s*** on the internet,” said Rock.
According to several anonymous sources, Will Smith tried to reach out to apologize to Rock after his apology tour. Still, Rock never called him back, feeling that Smith’s tour was to save his reputation, allegedly.
