After Will Smith’s slap, Chris Rock finally speaks out

Chris Rock was eagerly awaited Wednesday evening by the public of the Wilbur Theater from Boston. Several hundred people greeted him with loud applause for long minutes. Entirely dressed in white, the 57-year-old comedian received a real rock star welcome. “Wow, okay! Come on, let me do my show!“, he exclaimed when arriving on stage.
In the public, the slap administered by Will Smith to Chris Rock during the Oscars ceremony was obviously in everyone’s mind, especially since the comedian was the only protagonist of the case not to have spoken. And it is obviously with a pirouette that he evoked the “slapgate”, declaring “Come on, how was your weekend?”, arousing the laughter of the assembly, before adding: “I don’t have much to say about what happened so if you came to hear this I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend”.

“I’ll talk about that shit”

Knowing he was expected at the turn, Chris Rock weighed his every word. “I’m still digesting what happened. So at some point I’m going to talk about this shit. And it will be serious and funny“, he explained, while in the audience someone shouted a sonorous “Fuck Will Smith!”, which the comedian chose to ignore, launching his show to applause: “I’m just gonna tell a few jokes”. But will Chris Rock be able to maintain his freedom of tone when it is precisely a joke that earned him a thunderous slap in the middle of the Oscars ceremony? A joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia that enraged her husband Will Smith.

Will Smith’s Apology

Receiving the Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Williams Method just minutes after the incident, Will Smith did not directly apologize to Chris Rock. It was finally in an Instagram post that the actor addressed his victim on Monday evening. “I want to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I overstepped the mark and I was wrong. I’m embarrassed and my actions don’t represent the man I want to be.”, wrote the American actor. Words to which Chris Rock did not react.