Chris Rock Breaks Silence On Why He Didn't Hit Will Smith Back At Oscars

Chris Rock has finally addressed the famous Oscars slap in his new stand-up special, sharing why he never hit back at Will Smith.

The comedian addressed the incident back in 2022 when it happened but this time he talked about it in depth. 

And what better way to do so than in his Netflix special Selective Outrage on 4 March, where he left the audience hanging until the end of the performance.

"Y'all know what happened to me," he says, adding, "I got smacked at the f***ing Oscars by this motherf***er.

"People are like, 'Did it hurt?' It still hurts. I got 'Summertime' ringing in my ears."

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Taking a dig at Smith's reaction to his outburst, which saw him get banned from the Academy Awards for 10 years, Rock said: "I'm not a victim, baby.

"You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle, crying. You will never see it, never gonna happen... I took that hit like Pacquiao."

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In a great bit of self-deprecating humour, he goes on to highlight how much bigger Smith is than him.

"I know you can't tell on camera - Will Smith is significantly bigger than me," he says.

"We are not the same size, okay? Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You've never seen me do a movie with my shift off.

"If I'm in a movie getting open heart surgery, I've got on a sweater. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie."

The comedian also mocked Jada for her affair with her son's friend and the weird entanglement of the family over it, with the comedian saying that he 'rooted for Will Smith' his whole life.

"And now, I watch Emancipation just to see him get whooped," he jokes, referencing Smith's film in which he plays a slave who escapes captivity and goes to fight with Abraham Lincoln's army during the American Civil War.

Talking about how he never hit the actor back, apart from the fact that he is much bigger than him, Rock explains: "Because I got parents, that's why. Because I was raised, okay? I've got parents, and you know what my parents taught me?"

"Don’t fight in front of white people," he replies before dropping the mic.

Fans have been raving about the performance on Twitter, with one describing the mic drop moment as 'powerful'.

Another said: "Someone call the police. Chris Rock just killed Will Smith onstage."

"Chris Rock does it again," commented a third, while a fourth chimed in: "Chris Rock ended that show with the realest thing we heard so far this year."