Chris Rock Finally Speaks Out About The Will Smith Oscars Slap

It’s been almost a month since the Academy Awards in which Will Smith stood up and slapped Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s hair loss. 

Since then a whole cascade of things have happened, none of which looked good for Will Smith. Smith released a public apology to Rock the day after the event with the Academy issuing its own apology a few days later, but it seems it was too little too late. The recording of the slap quickly became one of the most viewed videos on YouTube, meaning that seemingly everyone had seen the clip. At the start of this month Smith resigned from the Academy over the incident, and more recently Netflix has put on hold Bright 2, Fast And Loose, and Bad Boys 4, all starring Smith following the incident. 

Even Will Smith’s mum has even weighed in with her thoughts on the famous slap. You can see her talk about her son in the video below.

While it seems most people involved in the incident have given their thoughts on what happened, one very important response was missing; that of Rock himself. However, on Friday (22 April) at the start of his stand-up set at Baltimore's Lyric Performing Arts Centre, Rock finally said his piece.

As spotted by Comic Book, WJZ-TV reporter Annie Rose Ramos claims Rock began his show by saying "I'm alright. I'm alright. Healed from the nicks and bruises...for the most part." After that he carried on his set as normal and did not return to the subject. 

At the Academy Awards Will Smith became only the fifth black actor to receive the Best Actor award in the 94 years the show has been running. This was for playing the titular role in King Richard. The previous recipients are Sidney Poitier for Lilies Of The Field, Denzel Washington for Training Day, Jamie Foxx for Ray, and Forest Whitaker for The Last King Of Scotland.