During last night’s Academy Awards, comedian Chris Rock was delivered a slap to the face by Will Smith that was heard around the world.
While the altercation had many questioning the stars’ relationship, it turns out that these two may have had bad blood brewing between them for some time now.
Chris Rock made jokes about Will and Jada back in 2016.
In February 2016, Rock appeared as the host of that year’s Academy Awards. During his opening monologue, the comedian took a dig at Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.
At the time, the Saturday Night Live alum poked fun at the actress for boycotting the Oscars due to the lack of diversity among the nominees.
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“Jada got mad, said she’s not coming,” Rock said. “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”
Rock then turned his attention over to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star, who also skipped out on the award show despite being nominated for his performance in the dramatic thriller Concussion.
“It’s not fair that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated,” Rock said. “It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West.”
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith brushed off Chris Rock's comments.
A week after Chris Rock devoted a portion of his opening monologue to the couple, Jada Pinkett Smith shared her thoughts on the comedian’s comments while speaking with X17.
“It comes with the territory, sweetheart,” she said, according to Page Six. “Hey, look, it comes with the territory, but we gotta keep it moving. We gotta keep it moving. We gotta keep it moving. There’s a lot of stuff we gotta handle, a lot of stuff in our world right now. We gotta keep it moving.”
Meanwhile, Will Smith didn’t have anything to say about Rock’s jokes and simply put up a peace sign when asked about the Fargo star’s monologue while filming in New York.
Will Smith didn't let Chris Rock's latest joke about Jada Pinkett Smith slide.
Though Will Smith turned the other cheek when Chris Rock poked fun at his wife six years ago, the gloves came off when the comedian made a joke about the actress during this year’s Oscars.
While presenting an award onstage, Rock joked about Pinkett Smith starring in a G.I. Jane because of her shaved head (The Girls’ Trip star publicly confirmed that she was diagnosed with alopecia in 2018).
Soon after the joke was said, Will Smith walked on stage and slapped Chris Rock.
Once he was back in his seat, the King Richard star shouted, “Keep my wife’s name out your f—king mouth. Keep my wife’s name out your f—king mouth!”
The intense moment shocked the audience and viewers at home.
Later that night, Smith apologized to the Academy and fellow nominees for his actions.
“I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. I know to do what we do, you got to be able to take abuse,” he said. “You got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business you got to be able to have people disrespecting you. And you got to smile, you got to pretend like that’s OK.”
