A year and a half after Will Smith’s infamous Oscar slam of Chris Rock, one of the comedian’s close friends, Leslie Jones, is speaking out about it.
Jones, 56, opened up People about the March 2022 blowout, which occurred after Rock, 58, made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, that Smith, 54, took offense to, which comes after Sean Penn claimed Smith undermined his Oscar win.
Jones revealed in a new interview with People that the blow was so ‘humiliating’ for Rock that he went to therapy with his daughters.
‘That was humiliating. It really affected him. People need to understand that his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to therapy with his daughters,” Jones said of Rock and daughters Lola, 21, and Zahra, 19.
Jones wasn’t at the Dolby Theater when the punch happened, but she revealed it made her “so enraged” that she was willing to go there.
Opening: A year and a half after Will Smith’s infamous Oscar slam of Chris Rock, one of the comedian’s close friends, Leslie Jones, is speaking out about it
Slap: Jones, 56, opened up to People about the March 2022 slap, which happened after Rock, 58, made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, which Smith, 54, took offense to, which comes after Sean Penn stated that Smith undermined his Oscar win
“You don’t know I would jump in my car and roll over there. I was so damn angry on so many levels,” Jones reveals.
The comedian reveals in her book Leslie F***ing Jones (out September 19) that she met Rock in the mid-1990s and that they have always had a special bond.
“He looks like my brother,” she said, adding that he threw her name in to land a spot on SNL in 2013, though she wasn’t entirely convinced.
‘I thought, “Why, those aren’t real comics.” He said, ‘Shut up. You sound like an idiot,” Jones recalled.
Rock even wrote the foreword for Jones’ new book, with the comedian adding, “He’s always there to give me the perfect advice when I need it.”
She also revealed that ‘For a long time I was just angry. Chris Rock was making a damn joke.”
“I know Will too…I was like, you wouldn’t be able to handle that shit after that. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching,” she said of the blow.
She added that when she spoke to Rock after the blow, she asked why he didn’t run away when he saw Smith take the stage.
Bond: The comedian reveals in her book Leslie F***ing Jones (out September 19) that she met Rock in the mid-1990s and that they have always had a special bond
Brother: ‘He’s like my brother,’ she said, adding that he threw her name in to land a spot on SNL in 2013, though she wasn’t entirely convinced
Foreword: Rock even wrote the foreword for Jones’ new book, with the comedienne adding, “He’s just always there to give me the perfect advice when I need it.”
Post-slap: She added that when she spoke to Rock after the slap, she asked why he didn’t run when he saw Smith take the stage
Running: ‘I thought, “Chris, why didn’t you run away when he got up?” I would have been running across that stage going, ‘Will, calm down. Jada, call your husband!” Jones admitted
‘I thought, “Chris, why didn’t you run away when he got up?” I would have been running across that stage going, ‘Will, calm down. Jada, call your husband!” Jones admitted.
Minutes after the punch, Smith won his first Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in King Richard, with Jones admitting he could still have ‘fixed’ the punch during his speech.
“He still could have fixed it,” she said, adding that she would have said, “I shouldn’t have done that.” Take Chris outside. I can’t accept the Oscar now because that was fucking wrong.’”
“Everyone got mad because he did a special. That’s what comedians do,” she says of his stand-up special Selective Outrage, which debuted on Netflix last March.
‘Instead of going crazy, we’re going to talk about it on stage. Thank God we have the stage,” she admitted.