Comedian Chris Rock recently shared a joke that didn’t make the cut in his Netflix special Selective Outrage.
The joke, which he revealed at the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor where he was honoring his long-time friend Adam Sandler, made reference to the Will Smith fiasco at the 2022 Oscars.
Smith struck Rock when the latter made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair.
Rock quipped on Sunday night, “Paul Pelosi [is] the only guy who knows how I felt. Just you and me, Paul.”
The joke was a reference to Paul Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi, who was attacked in his San Francisco home in October 2022.
Pelosi sustained a skull fracture and had to undergo surgery, and he is still recovering. Even without this joke, Rock didn’t shy away from laying into Smith, who publicly apologized for the incident in August last year.
In his Netflix special, Rock said, “I’m not a victim, baby. You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle, crying. You will never see it, never gonna happen… I took that hit like Pacquiao. I know you can’t tell on camera – Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. We are not the same size, OK? Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You’ve never seen me do a movie with my shift off. If I’m in a movie getting open-heart surgery, I’ve got on a sweater. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie.”
Rock even managed to work in a reference to Smith’s latest film, Emancipation. He joked, “And now, I watch Emancipation just to see him get whooped,” referencing Smith’s role in the movie as a slave who escapes captivity and goes to fight with Abraham Lincoln’s army during the American Civil War.
Rock’s recent comments have not been without controversy.
In a previous interview with The New York Times, he said that he didn’t believe cancel culture was real, stating, “The stuff they’re canceling, I don’t even know what it is.” He went on to say, “Who gets canceled? Books get canceled. People don’t get canceled.”
