A year after he was slapped on stage at the Academy Awards, Chris Rock on Saturday hammered Will Smith and his wife in a comedy special streamed live on Netflix, joking that he enjoyed seeing the actor beaten in his latest film.
At the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, Rock said he had been watching the slavery drama Emancipation just to see Smith “get whooped,” cheering “hit him again” and “you missed a spot.”
In March last year, Smith walked onto the stage at the Oscars and slapped Rock after the comedian made a joke about the appearance of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The King Richard star returned to his seat in the audience and later won best actor.
Photo: AFP
Rock had been mostly silent about the incident until the end of his hour-long special, when he accused Will Smith of “selective outrage,” also the name of his special.
The comedian said that Pinkett Smith had stirred tension among the three, in part by calling for a boycott of the Oscars in 2016 when Rock was the host.
Pinkett Smith said she was protesting that Will Smith and other black actors had not been nominated.
Rock, who is also black, joked about Pinkett Smith at the Oscars that year and again last year.
“She starts it. I finish it,” he said.
Rock also brought up marital problems the Smiths have publicly discussed. Pinkett Smith admitted to an affair that she called an “entanglement” in 2020.
“I didn’t have any entanglements,” Rock said. “She hurt him way more than he hurt me.”
Representatives for the Smiths did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Will Smith issued a statement of apology to Rock and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that awards the Oscars, the day after slapping Rock. The academy banned Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years.
The comedy special was the first event streamed live on Netflix, which is testing the technology as it considers expanding into other real-time programming.
Netflix agreed to pay US$40 million for two Rock comedy specials under a deal reached in 2016, a person familiar with the matter said.
Saturday’s special was the second of the two.
Rock spent most of the show riffing on topics ranging from Britain’s royal family to the Kardashians, abortion and his dating life. He concluded by saying why he did not fight back when Smith hit him.
“I got parents, and you know what my parents taught me?” he said. “Don’t fight in front of white people.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS