While performing together in the U.K. famous comedians Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock slammed disgraced actor Will Smith over the actor’s attack on Rock during this year’s Oscars. During a portion of his stand up routine, Rock said in reference to the apology that Smith gave over the incident: “F*** your hostage video.”
“Yes, that s*** hurt. He played Ali. I can’t even play Floyd Mayweather,” he added. Chappelle, who also commented on the incident, followed Rock, saying: “That was some scary s***.” Chappelle continued, noting Smith’s upbringing in west Philadelphia: “A lot of people forget who Will Smith is. Then 10 minutes before he was about to get the biggest award… he acted like he was back in Philadelphia.”
On the stage at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena in the U.K., Chappelle asked Rock earlier this month, if that slap hurt, to which Rock replied, “G*****n right … the motherf***er hit me over a bulls*** joke, the nicest joke I ever told.” “Will did the impression of a perfect person for 30 years, and he ripped his mask off and showed us he was as ugly as the rest of us. Whatever the consequences are … I hope he doesn’t put his mask back on again, and lets his real face breathe. I see myself in both men,” Chappelle said.
Earlier this summer, Smith released a nearly six-minute video apologizing to Rock for the incident. Smith is wearing a ball cap and golf shirt in the video, and is seated in what appears to be his home, while answering questions from fans and critics on the internet. Smith expresses deep remorse in a sometimes halting voice, for the March 27 incident that has likely cost him his place atop Tinseltown.
Text on the video begins with: “It’s been a minute …” “Over the last few months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and personal work,” he said. Then, Smith starts reading and answering questions about the shocking incident, in which he charged the stage at the Academy Awards show and slapped the comedian after he had made a joke at the expense of Jada Pinkett Smith, the wife of Will Smith. Smith was awarded a “Best Actor” Oscar just minutes later, for his role as tennis patriarch Richard Williams.
Smith begins, reading a question: “Why didn’t you apologize to Chris in your acceptance speech?” He answered: “I was fogged out by that point. It’s all fuzzy. I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk and when he is, he will reach out.” Then, Smith apologized to Rock, his family and the comedian’s mother in particular, who he says he saw in an interview and realized how much the incident had hurt her, reported Daily Wire.
“I just didn’t realize, and you know, I wasn’t thinking about how many people got hurt in that moment. So, I want to apologize to Chris’s mother. I want to apologize to Chris’s family, specifically [Chris Rock’s younger brother] Tony Rock. You know, we had a great relationship. You know, Tony Rock was my man. And this is probably irreparable,” Smith says in the video.
Smith addresses another question in the video, which is whether his wife put him up to attacking Rock. “No. I made a choice on my own, from my own experiences, and my history with Chris. Jada had nothing to do with it. I’m sorry, babe, and I want to say sorry to my kids and my family for the heat that I brought on all of us,” Smith said.
