In a recent stand-up performance this month, Tony Rock made it crystal clear he’s still bothered by the notorious 2022 incident when Will Smith slapped his brother Chris Rock at the Oscars.
In footage posted to his Instagram (see below), Tony performed at Virginia Beach’s Funny Bone and revisited the controversial moment. “I can’t leave until I do this last thing on my list of things to do,” he told the crowd. “I have to get Will Smith. Oh yeah. Y’all thought that shit was fucking over? That shit ain’t fucking over. I’m just laying low right now… The Oscars right around the corner, we ain’t forget. Motherfucker fucking hit my brother. Don’t nobody hit my brother but me. And even I got to clear that shit with mommy first.”
After drawing laughter from the audience, he described meeting with Chris two days after the slap. “First order of business: ‘Are you okay?'” he went on. “‘Yeah, man, I got slapped.’ ‘Yeah, you did, yeah.’ I said, ‘Second: N***a, you have not been out the hood that long that you forgot how to slide on a motherfucker.’ … He stood there like a fucking lawn jockey.”
He claimed things would’ve played out differently if he’d been present, suggesting he would’ve jumped in and climbed onstage too. “If I was there, the Oscars would have to go to a commercial and never came back,” he quipped.
In 2022, shortly after the incident, Tony Rock appeared on the Top Billin’ with Bill Bellamy podcast and suggested the real reason Will Smith slapped his brother stemmed from Jada Pinkett Smith’s continued connection to 2Pac.
“I think that [Oscar Slap] was the accumulation of him being slapped on other levels,” Tony explained. “He said it himself, he always hated the ‘soft moniker.’ He’s soft, Jada won’t let 2Pac die, it’s always something about 2Pac and his daughter [Willow Smith] brought up 2Pac. And I’m not bringing up family stuff that people don’t know… this is stuff that everybody knows.”
In 2023, Tony also called out Will Smith, claiming he wasn’t truthful about reaching out to Chris to make peace.
