Chris Rock came under Twitter fire for a left-field joke he made about Will Smith while testing out some material for his recently released March 4 unedited Netflix special Selective Outrage.
According to the New York Post, Rock cracked a joke saying that he’s long supported Smith while performing at an event at the Manhattan Comedy Cellar. Still, since the infamous incident when Smith slapped him at the Oscars, he’s clearly held some resentment for him.
“I rooted for Will Smith my whole life,” Rock said. “The other day, I watched Emancipation just so I could watch him getting whipped.”
He continued to joke, “Will Smith practices selective outrage. People who are in the know, know that s*** had nothing to do with me. He is significantly bigger than me. You will never see me on camera with my shirt off. Will played Muhammad Ali. I played Pookie.”
“Will Smith is a big dude. I am not. Will Smith is shirtless in his movies. If you see me in a movie getting open heart surgery, I’m gonna have a sweater on.”
Rock’s bit even directly addressed the slap to the crowd, not holding back any quips to the Manhattan crowd.
“The thing people wanna know. Did it hurt? H*** yeah, it hurt. Even in animated movies, I’m a zebra; he’s a f**king shark. I got hit so hard. I heard ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears.”
Although the crowd reportedly found his jokes funny, users hopped on Twitter to point out how off-putting Rocks’ Emancipation joke about Smith was.
Not my account is locked for 12 hours cause it’s a tweet saying that Chris Rock watched emancipation just to see Will get whipped and I tweeted “sm*ck him again” and now my page locked 😩🤣
— 🌹🥀 (@xo_sherisse) March 3, 2023
That Emancipation joke is for 🤚🏻 people. And for that reason alone Chris Rock can kiss my ass.
I’ve always understood why he got popped. Ain’t nothing changed about that.
— Azure L. Renee (@azurelrenee) March 2, 2023
Chris Rock can make all the jokes he wants about Will Smith, but making a joke saying “I only watched Emancipation to see Will Smith get whipped” in a room of predominantly white people is disgusting.
— ⚜️ (@rayethequeen) March 3, 2023
This is the Chris Rock who said he watched “Emancipation” to see Will Smith to get whipped. He’s not a hero and shouldn’t be made out to be one https://t.co/AcRObeiDry
— 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐞 (@exavierpope) March 4, 2023
