Chris Rock has addressed the slap seen around the world.
In his Boston stand-up show on Wednesday night, the comedian made his first public comments since being slapped in the face onstage by actor Will Smith on Sunday night.
The audience gave Rock two standing ovations before he could even begin his set.
“Let me do a show, yo,” he told the crowd. “You got me all misty.”
He went on to address the now-infamous incident.
“How was your weekend?” he opened, as the sold-out audience laughed. “I don’t have a bunch of s--- about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point I’ll talk about that s---. And it will be serious and funny."
"Except for some weird stuff, my life is great," he joked later.
One of the most stunning moments in Oscars history began when Rock was on stage to present the award for best documentary. He was roasting various celebrities in the audience and made fun of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, by saying, “Jada, love you, ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it.”
Demi Moore famously shaved her head to play a woman undergoing training similar to becoming a Navy SEAL in 1997’s “G.I. Jane," so Rock's joke appeared to be in reference to Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.
Pinkett Smith has been public since 2018 about having alopecia and hair loss. It was unclear if Rock knew about Pinkett Smith’s hair loss.
She was seen rolling her eyes in the crowd after the joke, while her husband initially chuckled. However, Smith soon became angry to the point that he marched onstage and smacked Rock in the face.
The American broadcast of the moment was heavily censored, but the uncensored moment was seen in broadcasts around the world.
“Will Smith just smacked the s--- out of me,” a stunned Rock said.
Smith returned to his seat and cursed at the comedian, telling him, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f------ mouth!”
Forty minutes later, Smith was announced as the winner for best actor for playing Richard Williams in “King Richard,” the film about the father of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams. It was Smith’s first Oscar after two previous nominations.
In his six-minute speech, he alluded to the incident with Rock but didn’t apologize directly to him. Instead, he apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and added that “love will make you do crazy things.”
That night, Rock declined to file a report against Smith, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Academy released a statement Monday saying it “does not condone violence of any form" and on Wednesday, announced disciplinary proceedings against Smith “for violations of the Academy’s Standards of Conduct, including inappropriate physical contact, abusive or threatening behavior, and compromising the integrity of the Academy.”
The Academy also clarified that Smith had been asked to leave after the incident and he "refused."
“Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated. While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently,” the statement concluded.
In the days that followed the infamous TV moment, celebrities both defended and condoned Smith's action. Notably, two of the hosts, Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer, both said they were "traumatized" by the incident.
“So much pain in @willsmith anyway I’m still in shock and stunned and sad. Im proud of myself and my cohosts," Schumer wrote in a now-deleted post. "But yeah. Waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed."