Chris Rock hits back at Will Smith on Netflix live stream

LOS ANGELES: Chris Rock finally hit back at Will Smith in a brutal stand-up routine on Saturday, a year after the actor beat him for the Oscars in front of a worldwide television audience.

The comedian came out with a bang, accusing the Hollywood star of “selective outrage” when he responded to a taunt over Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, saying Smith punched a smaller man because he was annoyed that his wife saw him have cheated.

“Will Smith practices selective outrage,” Rock told an audience on a show streamed live on Netflix.

“Anyone who really knows knows I had nothing to do with it. I had no involvements,” he said, referring to Pinkett Smith’s admitted marital infidelity.

Rock presented an Oscar in Hollywood last March when he made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s cropped head. She has alopecia.

The Men in Black star took the stage and slapped the comedian hard in the face before returning to his seat and yelling obscenities at the host.

Minutes later, Smith won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in King Richard.

He later apologized to Rock but was sidelined from the Oscars for a decade.

Rock was lauded for his measured response on the night and has remained virtually silent on the subject throughout the year.

But on Saturday night’s live stream from Baltimore, he rocked it.

“People ask, ‘Did it hurt?’ It still hurts,” he said.

“Will Smith is significantly taller than me. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a film. Do you think I auditioned for it?”

“I finish it”

The comedian said Smith was widely mocked after an episode of his wife’s podcast, in which the couple spoke about their affair and how it affected him.

“Why would you do that?” he asked. Many people have been scammed, but the Hollywood power couple is the only one who has spoken out about it publicly, he said.

“Everyone in the world called him a bitch. They called his wife a predator. Everyone called him a bitch,” he said, noting that he had tried to offer his condolences after news of the affair broke.

Rock said Pinkett Smith’s animosity stemmed from a few years earlier when she urged him to boycott the Oscars because her husband was overlooked for his 2015 film Concussion.

“She said … a grown man should quit his job because her husband wasn’t nominated for ‘Concussion.’ Then[Smith]gives me a concussion,” he quipped.

“What the heck? So I made some jokes about it? Who cares? That’s the way it is; she starts, I finish. Nobody picked on her.”

Rock, who seemed genuinely angry at times, said last year he’d always loved Smith, first as a rapper and then as an actor.

“He had made some great films. “I’ve had a crush on Will Smith my whole life,” he said, but now, he said, he’s crushed on the slave master who beats Smith’s character in his latest film, Emancipation.

Rock’s Show was the first live comedy event for Netflix, with the platform reportedly also interested in offering live sports.

Competitors like Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video already offer live events with sports and music performances.

Netflix is ​​hosting a live comedy festival at dozens of Los Angeles venues, but those shows have yet to be streamed live on its platform.

This year’s Oscars will take place on March 12th. – AFP