It’s been almost a month since the 94th Academy Awards, where Best Picture went to CODA, Ariana DeBose won for West Side Story, and The Power of the Dog somehow only took home one trophy. Oh, and Will Smith took home Best Actor after slapping presenter Chris Rock. Even now, the comic, who did his best to quickly get things back on track, has only briefly addressed the incident. But his mom has some stuff to say.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, Rose Rock, an author, motivational speaker, and mother of one of America’s most popular stand-ups, opened up about the incident in an interview with WIS. She said her son is “still processing” what happened, but she already has some thoughts she’d like to share with the world.
“I told someone, when Will slapped Chris, he slapped all of us, but he really slapped me,” Rose said. “When you hurt my child, you hurt me.”
When Rose was asked what she’d say if Smith contacted her, 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 also took umbrage with the Academy’s solution to Smith’s antics: banning him from attending the ceremony for a decade. “What does that mean? You don’t even go every year,” she said. She also wasn’t buying the brief mea culpa he released days later. “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.”
Rock’s mom isn’t the only family member who’s spoken about what Smith did to him. Days after the incident, his brother, Tony Rock, shot down rumors, floated by Diddy, that the two had since reconciled, effectively saying the rapper had lied.
(Via THR)
