It’s been more than a year since Will Smith’s infamous assault on Chris Rock during the 2022 Academy Awards. The comedian made a dig at Smith’s wife during his monologue and Smith, much to the shock of viewers and attendees alike, took enough issue with the comment to make his way to the podium and slap the confused smile right off of Rock’s face.
While Rock himself was initially incredibly quiet about the controversy, his recent Netflix special, Selective Outrage was clearly his therapeutic way of coping with the slap heard ‘round the world. The “selective outrage” Rock is talking about is aimed exclusively at Smith, who — as he jokes throughout the special — is directing his frustrations at the wrong person. Rock thinks the aggression was truly meant for Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, who had recently admitted to a four-year “entanglement” – an affair Pinkett-Smith had with her son’s friend, then 22-year-old musician August Alsina. Will Smith has since apologized for his reaction, but it hasn’t done much to quell the conversation.
Rock isn’t the only person to blame Will Smith’s assault on his wife’s antics. Since the start of the brouhaha, fans and celebrities alike have been expressing support for one party or the other. Nick Cannon believes that Smith’s response was a build-up of rage after being on the “Toxic” red table internet talk show Pinkett-Smith co-hosted. Jim Carrey was quick to shame Smith for his disproportionate response, Steve Harvey thought it was “a punk move.” Now comedic legend D.L. Hughley is weighing in on the subject.
In an interview with VladTV, Hughley goes to bat, unapologetically defending Rock’s word choice from the event that night saying, “What do you call somebody that f**ks your son’s best friend, and then brings you on a show where you talk about it?”
Interviewer DJ Vlad pushes the word choice, noting that the whole crowd went quiet as soon as Rock labeled Pinkett-Smith a b**ch.
“If we take b**ch off the table, what is it? What do you say? There has to be some way to express your outrage about it, right?” Hughley pushed back, “If somebody did that to you, what would you call them?”
As a comedian, Hughley understands the risk inherent in an inelegant joke. Despite this — and arguments that, due to the joke, the slap was warranted — he can’t get behind arguments that Smith was in the right, “You think that a joke is more impactful than a slap. I disagree.”
He refuses to hold back throughout the interview, emphasizing that “[being called] a bitch is better than getting slapped,” and accurately noting that “Calling [somebody] a bitch isn’t illegal. Punching somebody is.”
Hughley is just as convinced the attack was a reflection of the Red Table interview as Chris Rock himself. He insinuates that the emotion Smith displaced on Rock was a symptom of a heartsickness deeply engrained in a man whose wife forced him to talk about deeply personal issues for social media acclaim.
“You know, it’s insulting to me… Stop pretending that when Will cried that night and was so emotional that night, that wasn’t based on one joke. That wasn’t based on one joke about Jada, that was some whole other s**t going on.”
As Rock says in his special, “We’ve all been cheated on, but we’ve never had to go and do an interview with the person who cheated on us.”
