Chris Rock’s mother, Rose, said in a new interview that when Will Smith slapped her son at the Oscars, “he really slapped me.”
The comedian himself has yet to publicly address the incident, but his mother had plenty to say in an interview with WIS News. “I told someone, when Will slapped Chris, he slapped all of us, but he really slapped me,” Rose Rock remarked. “When you hurt my child, you hurt me.”
Rose said she had “no idea” what she would say to Smith “other than, ‘What in the world were you thinking?’ Because you did a slap, but so many things could have happened.”
“Chris could have stepped back and fallen,” she added. “You really could have gotten taken out in handcuffs. You didn’t think.” You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye, and you went up, and you made her day because she was bowled over laughing when it happened.”
Rose further blasted Smith for failing to apologize to her son. “I feel really bad that he never apologized,” Rock said. “His people wrote up a piece and said, ‘I apologize to Chris Rock,’ but something like that is personal. You reach out.”
Rose also took issue with the Academy’s punishment of Smith, which prohibits him from attending the Oscars for the next 10 years. “What does that mean? [Smith] don’t even go every year,” she responded.
Other members of the Rock family have also come to Chris’ defense. Tony, Chris’ younger brother and a fellow comedian, warned Smith: “If you walk your ass up here, you ain’t nominated for shit, but these motherfucking hands.” Meanwhile, another one of Chris’ younger brothers, Kenny, told the LA Times that he wished the Academy would have rescinded Smith’s Academy Award.
“It eats at me watching it over and over again because you’ve seen a loved one being attacked and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Kenny told the Times. “Every time I’m watching the videos, it’s like a rendition that just keeps going over and over in my head. My brother was no threat to him and you just had no respect for him at that moment. You just belittled him in front of millions of people that watch the show.”
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