Comedian Chris Rock has finally responded to the Oscars slap, during his stand-up, “Selective Outrage,” at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre, which streamed live on Netflix this weekend.
“I’m going to try to do a show tonight without offending nobody. I’m going to try my best because you never know who might get triggered,” Rock said during his opening. “People always say words hurt. Anybody who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.”
After this reference to the slap heard around the world, Rock held all of his jokes about the incident until the end of the show.
“You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith,” Rock said. “It still hurts. I got ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears. But I’m not a victim, baby. You’ll never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying … I took that hit like Pacquiao.”
Rock opined that Smith’s violent response to his joke had more to do with something that Will Smith is dealing with.
“His wife was [having sex with] her son’s friend. I normally would not talk about this. … But for some reason, [they] put that … on the internet,” Rock said, referencing Jada Pinkett Smith’s “entanglement” with singer August Alsina. “She hurt him way more than he hurt me.”
But Rock doesn’t appear to hold any ill will toward Smith.
“I love Will Smith, my whole life,” Rock said. “I have rooted for Will Smith my whole life … now I watch ‘Emancipation’ just to see him get whupped.”
“‘How come you didn’t do nothing back that night?’” Rock said people have asked him. “Because I got parents. You know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of White people.”
Rock’s standup lasted just over an hour. He touched on several topics such as “woke” and “cancel culture.”
“I have no problem with the wokeness. I have no problem with it at all. I’m all for social justice. I’m all for marginalized people getting their rights. The thing I have a problem with is the selective outrage,” Rock said. “You know what I’m talking about. One person does something, they get canceled. Somebody else does the exact same thing, nothing. You know what I’m talking about … the kind of people who play Michael Jackson songs but won’t play R. Kelly. Same crime, one of them just has better songs.”
Rock also spoke about opioids, Meghan Markle, as well as abortion. He also talked about O.J. Simpson and the Kardashians. He shared a personal story about his daughter getting expelled from an elite high school, and he talked about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and much more.