Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle have taken their antics on a joint tour, with the first stop in Liverpool, England including more jokes about their respective assaults this year. First up was Rock, who referenced Will Smith’s controversial Oscars slap.
“Did that shit hurt?” he said to the crowd, per Deadline. “Goddamn right…the motherfucker hit me over a bullshit joke, the nicest joke I ever told.”
Rock, 57, added that he returned to work the next day, and that, in this scenario, he doesn’t consider himself the victim.
The slap went down as Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature. While on stage, Rock quipped that Smith’s wife, who has alopecia, was starring in G.I. Jane 2—an obvious reference to her shaved head. Moments later, Smith walked onto the stage and slapped Rock across the face, before returning to his seat and shouting: “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.”
Rock was visibly shaken by the incident, but resumed his presenter duties.
During Thursday night’s show at Liverpool’s M&S Arena, Chappelle suggested the slap completely shattered Smith’s good-guy persona and showed his true colors.
“Will did the impression of a perfect person for 30 years, and he ripped his mask off and showed us he was as ugly as the rest of us,” Chappelle told the crowd. “Whatever the consequences are … I hope he doesn’t put his mask back on again and lets his real face breathe. I see myself in both men.”
Following the Oscars incident, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences slapped Smith with a decade-long ban. Smith, who won the Best Actor award for King Richard, issued a lengthy apology to Rock about four months later.
“I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk, and when he is, he will reach out,” he said in a video. “So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you,” Smith said. “My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Chappelle also touched on his own assault incident from May, when the comedian was attacked by an audience member while performing at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
“That was some scary shit,” Chappelle said.
In late August, Rock reportedly told a Phoenix, Arizona crowd that the Oscars asked him to return in 2023, but he turned them down. He apparently said that it would be like going back to a crime scene, and that he also declined a Super Bowl ad offer after the slapping incident.
Rock and Chappelle will tour together in the UK and Europe before returning to America for the rest of the run in late September.
