Chris Rock Will Publicly Speak About The Slap Under One Condition
Chris Rock has been touring his comedy act since the incident at the Oscars, but he hasn't talked about it in any of his material.
We all know about The Slap by now. When you’re talking about a slap in 2022, there’s really only one slap you could be referring to. And a lot of people are talking about said slap. A lot of people….except for the person who actually got slapped. Chris Rock has been touring his comedy act since the incident at the Oscars, but he hasn’t talked about it in any of his material. He briefly addressed this at the top of his show at the Fantasy Springs Resort-Casino in Indio, California.
I’m OK, I have a whole show and I’m not talking about that until I get paid. Life is good. I got my hearing back.
Chris Rock
This definitely makes sense. If Chris Rock already has a show’s worth of material he’s currently getting paid to tour with, why not save his juicy material regarding the slap for his next tour? That would definitely sell tickets, as people are sure to want to get his comedic take on the incident. He may even hold out for a deal with a streaming platform to produce a comedy special about it. Either way, Chris Rock knows that he’ll be able to turn the slap into an opportunity for some money, so why not take it?
If you somehow missed all of the buzz about the slap, the story isn’t all that complicated, though the incident was all people could talk about the next day, and for most of the week after. While on stage at the Oscars, Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. Will Smith walked to the stage and slapped him, before returning to his seat and yelling at the comedian. The stunned Chris Rock handled the situation well responding to Smith’s yelling before quickly moving the show along. Will Smith would take home the Best Actor Oscar later that night for his performance in King Richard, but that wasn’t the talking point for most people after the show was over.
Will Smith apologized to his fellow actors and the Academy during his Best Actor win speech and would later publicly apologize to Chris Rock in an Instagram post. In addition to the apology, Smith resigned from the Academy. The Academy met to review his actions and recently decided to ban Smith from the Oscars and other Academy events for the next 10 years.
Though it is technically possible that Will Smith could also be stripped of his award, it seems that the Academy has made its final ruling on the matter. Smith also appears to be losing work as a result of his actions. The Netflix film Fast and Loose has been shelved and Bad Boys 4 has been delayed until further notice. It’s unclear if the film will be made at this point, but it doesn’t seem likely that a big franchise would just be shelved completely. He does have an Antoine Fuqua-directed film titled Emancipation that is supposed to hit Apple TV+ later this year.
While discussion around the slap is gradually settling down, there will surely be more discourse about it when Chris Rock decides to finally release slap-related stand-up material, or whatever project he decides to pursue where he can get properly paid.
