Anything can happen when you’re live. This past Saturday night, chris rock returned to the spotlight with the premiere of his stand-up comedy special, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, on Netflix. Making history, the special was the first live event broadcast worldwide. While things worked out for the most part, Rock botched one of his jokes when it came time to address the infamous Will Smith incident. Although the comedian even joked about his own glitch, the glitch has since been removed from the replay version which can now be streamed on Netflix after the fact.
The glitch relates to a story Rock told about Jada Pinkett Smith warning him that he shouldn’t be hosting the Oscars, but instead naming Will Smith’s movie ConcussionRock named the most recent movie Emancipation. The joke was about how Smith had practically given Rock a concussion with the “Oscar slap”, and Rock realized before he got to the end of the joke that he had said the wrong title.
“Years ago, his wife said that he should give up on the Oscars, that he shouldn’t host, because his man wasn’t nominated for it. Emancipationbiggest shit ever,” Rock said during the livestreamed event, with this moment now redacted. He added: “No, no. Emancipation… I ruined the joke.”
Setting his punchline with the correct title, Rock then continued: “She started this sh*t. She said that I, a fucking grown man, should resign from her job because her husband was not nominated for Concussion. And then this (expletive) gives me a fucking concussion.”
Chris Rock would also joke about emancipation
Maybe Emancipation was on Rock’s mind as he would also have a pretty tough barb for Will Smith in relation to that movie. In the film, Smith plays a slave who escapes from a plantation after enduring barbaric treatment, including being severely whipped. Rock controversially joked that he watched the movie just to see this happen to Smith, suggesting that he made him feel better about the Oscar slap.
“I’ve supported Will Smith my whole life,” Rock said, emphasizing how much things have changed in the way he views Smith. “I support this son of a bitch, he’s fine, and nowI see Emancipation Just to see him get whipped!”
Before ending his set, Rock also said that the reason he didn’t do anything to Smith at the Oscars last year was because “he was brought up.” He said that one thing his parents had always taught him was to never “fight in front of white people.” Rock clearly had a lot on his mind, and perhaps expressing it all through comedy was his way of trying to heal, as comedian Marlon Wayans suggests.
“It was good to hear him talk about it,” Wayans said, via People. “You could tell that he was passionate. What you were hearing was someone who was hurt, someone who was finding a way to heal in that moment.”
