Chris Rock’s mother has spoken out about the infamous Oscars incident where Will Smith slapped him live on stage.
The 57-year-old was humiliated on the global stage in March when 53-year-old Will stormed the stage of the Oscars to slap Chris in the face after he made an ill-judged joke about the hair of Jada Pinkett-Smith, who suffers from alopecia.
Will took offence to Chris’s joke about 50-year-old Jada, assaulted him in front of the A List awards show audience and then screaming further abuse from his chair upon his return to the audience.
Viewers were shocked and appalled by Will’s actions – and not least Chris’s own mother, Rose, who has now shared her views on the infamous incident.
Speaking to the WIS' Billie Jean Shaw radio show in South Carolina in the USA, Rose reflected on the moment she saw her son being slapped square in the face by Will.
She said: “You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye, and you went and made her day because she was mulled over laughing when it happened.”
Going on to give her opinion, she said: "When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us. He really slapped me.
“Because when you hurt my child, you hurt me."
She added: “No one heard his speech. No one was able to just be in the moment because everyone was sitting there like, 'What just happened?'"
Chris himself has remained reasonably tight-lipped over the incident – only telling an audience during his current world tour: "I'm still processing what happened."
The comedian has hinted that he will address the incident at a future point.
Meanwhile, Will has quit the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences following his slap-happy behaviour and offered an apology to Chris.
The Academy took action to ban Will from the ceremony for the next ten years – but Rose thinks both Wills apology and apparent punishment are not enough.
Addressing the 10 year ban, she said: “What does that mean? You don’t even go every year.”
And discussing the fact that Will put an apology online on Instagram : “I feel really bad that he never apologized.”
She added: “His people wrote up a piece and said, ‘I apologize to Chris Rock,’ but something like that is personal. You reach out.”
Rose’s words echo that of her other son, Kenny, who believed Will had not apologised properly to his brother.
The 42-year-old told the LA Times: “I don’t think it was genuine.
“I think his publicist and the people that work under him probably advised him to do that.”
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033.
