Rose Rock, the mother of Academy Awards host Chris Rock, said when actor Will Smith slapped her comedian son live on the air, she felt like she was being slapped, too.
Speaking to South Carolina TV station WIS TV, Rose Rock said that Smith’s assault seemed very personal to her.
“When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us. He really slapped me, because when you hurt my child, you hurt me,” she told the station.
Smith, of course, shocked Hollywood and the world when he bounded up onstage and delivered an open-handed blow to Christ Rock’s face after the comedian delivered a joke about Smith’s wife during the 2022 Oscars telecast.
After the slap, Smith left the stage screaming at Rock to keep Jada Pinkett Smith’s name out of his mouth. Moments earlier, Rock had joked that Pinkett Smith, who was sporting a shaved head due to a bout of alopecia, looked like “G.I. Jane.”
***LANGUAGE WARNING***
During her recent interview, Mrs. Rock went on to address Smith himself, saying, “You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye and you went and made her day because she was mulled over laughing when it happened.”
The comic’s mom admitted that, like many others, she at first thought that Smith’s attack was staged. But when Smith started screaming out obscenities on the air, she knew it was real.
Mrs. Rock also blasted Smith for ruining Questlove’s moment on stage. Immediately after Smith’s violent outburst, Chris Rock gave the director and Roots drummer an Oscar for Best Documentary for his film Summer of Soul.
“No one even heard his speech. No one was able to just be in the moment because everyone was sitting there like, ‘what just happened?’” she said of Questlove’s predicament.
Rock noted that so many things could have happened. Her son could have been seriously hurt by the blow, or fallen and hurt himself that way. Or Smith could have even been hauled out of the Oscars in handcuffs.
Mrs. Rock added that she got hold of Chris as soon as she could to tell him she was proud of him.
For his part, Chris Rock had said that he won’t talk about the slap until he “gets paid” for his comedy show in which he talked about the incident.
Smith has seen some repercussions for the attack. In the days following the broadcast, the Academy decided to ban hm from the Oscars for a decade for his onstage outburst. He also resigned from the Academy and apologized for his behavior.
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