Chris Rock’s mother said Will Smith “slapped all of us” when he struck her son at the Oscars.
Rose Rock admitted she initially thought the altercation – which saw the ‘King Richard’ star lash out at the comedian over a joke he made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith – was “staged” until the ‘Men in Black’ actor started using “obscenities” and she took the moment personally.
Speaking to local South Carolina news station WIS-TV, she told presenter Billie Jean Shaw: “I told someone, when Will slapped Chris, he slapped all of us, but he really slapped me. When you hurt my child, you hurt me.”
When asked what she would say to Will, she replied: “I have no idea what I would say 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. 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 said her son is still “processing” what happened at the ceremony but she is “really, really proud” of how the ‘Top 5’ star responded at the time.
Although the matriarch doesn’t think the Academy should have taken away the Best Actor Oscar Will won for ‘King Richard’ that same night, she suggested she is unimpressed by their decision to ban him from all events, including the Oscars ceremony, for 10 years.
She said: “What does that mean? You don’t even go every year.”
And Rose doesn’t feel Will’s apology to her son – which he shared on Instagram – was genuine.
She said: “I feel really bad that he never apologised. His people wrote up a piece and said, ‘I apologise to Chris Rock,’ but something like that is personal. You reach out.”
Following the row, Will resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
