Rosalie “Rose” Rock, the mother of Chris Rock, called out Will Smith for slapping her son during the Oscars telecast during an interview with a local South Carolina news station. In an interview with Live 5 News on Friday, Rose Rock said the slap didn’t only hurt her son. “When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us,” she said, telling the station “he really slapped me.”
Smith slapped Chris Rock after a joke made at the expense of Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith. The comedian made a comment alluding that Pinkett Smith would appear in a new “G.I. Jane” movie because of her closely buzzed haircut.
Pinkett Smith has alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that causes a person’s hair to fall out. The joke triggered Smith to walk up to the stage and strike Chris Rock. “You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye and you went and made her day because she was mulled over laughing when it happened,” Rose Rock said of the moment.
She went on to say that her son had been so eager to present Questlove, who won an Oscar for the documentary “Summer of Soul,” and the moment was ruined by the slap. “No one even heard his speech. No one was able to just be in the moment because everyone was sitting there like, ‘what just happened?’” she said.
