It’s been almost a year since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock while the comic was presenting on stage at the Academy Awards.
In the months that followed, just about everyone on the planet offered their two cents on the situation, including Will, who tearfully apologized in a lengthy video he posted back in July.
But through all the hot takes and expert analysis, the other principal player in this drama remained silent.
Which was odd, because Rock has never been one to hold back his feelings on any topic!
Of course, Chris is a comedian, so perhaps it makes sense that he wanted to hold off on commenting until he was able to sublimate the mess into material he could use on stage.
And that’s exactly what he did in his new “Selective Outrage” special, which debuted live on Netflix on Sunday night.
“You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith,” Rock told the audience, referencing the infamously violent-tempered record producer Suge Knight.
“It still hurts. I got ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears.
“You know what people say, they say, ‘words hurt.’ Anyone that say words hurt have never been punched in the face,” Rock continued, before congratulating himself on how well he took the slap.
“But I’m not a victim, baby. You’ll never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying,” Rock insisted. He joked that he “took that s— like [Manny] Pacquiao.”
Chris went on to accuse the Smiths of “selective outrage,” alleging that they weren’t really angry about his jokes about Jada’s hair, but were instead upset about issues within their marriage.
“Everybody that really knows knows I had nothing to do with that s—,” said Rock. “I didn’t have any ‘entanglements.'”
Now, if Will thought the crack about Jada’s hair was a low blow, he must really be furious about Chris’ use of the word “entanglement.”
That’s the word Jada used to refer to her affair with August Alsina — and that’s probably still a sensitive subject in the Smith household.
“Everybody in this industry has been cheated on,” Rock said.
“None of us have ever been interviewed by the person that cheated on us on television. None of us. … Why the f— would you do that s—?”
“She hurts him way more than she hurts me, okay?”
Rock went on to allege that in the wake of Jada’s cheating scandal, “everybody was calling Will a “b-tch.”
“Everybody. And who’s he hit? Me, an-ga he knows he can beat. That’s some b-tch ass sh-t.”
Rock went on to emphasize the unfairness of the fight:
“You will never see me do a movie with my shirt off. If I’m in a movie getting open-heart surgery, I got on a sweater,” Rock explained.
THe played Muhammed Ali, I played Pookie in ‘New Jack City.'”
He also alleged that the Smiths were angry with him for hosting the Oscars in a year where there was controversy about the lack of diversity among the nominees.
“She f-cking said [I] should quit because Will didn’t get nominated for Concussion,” Rock said, referencing Smith’s 2016 film.
“So then I do some jokes about it, who gives af—? That’s how it is. She started it, I finished it. … Nobody was picking on her.”
Rock went on to explain that he didn’t hit Smith back because he was raised differently.
“You know what my parents taught me?” Rock asked his audience.
“Don’t fight in front of white people.”
The Smiths have yet to publicly respond to Chris’ latest jabs.
But we think it’s safe to say that the feud just got a whole lot worse.