A year and a half after Will Smith‘s infamous Oscar slap of Chris Rock, one of the comedian’s close friends, Leslie Jones, is speaking out about it.
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 stating that Smith undermined his Oscar win.
Jones revealed in a new interview with People that the slap was so ‘humiliating’ for Rock that he attended therapy with his daughters.
‘That s**t was humiliating. It really affected him. People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters,’ Jones said of Rock and daughters Lola, 21, and Zahra, 19.
Jones wasn’t at the Dolby Theatre when the slap happened, but she revealed it made her, ‘so infuriated’ that she was ready to head over there.
Opening up: A year and a half after Will Smith ‘s infamous Oscar slap 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 stating that Smith undermined his Oscar win
Will Smith SLAPS Chris Rock at the Oscars over joke about Jada
‘You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there. I was so f***ing mad on so many levels,’ Jones reveals.
The comedienne reveals in her book Leslie F***ing Jones (due out September 19) that she met Rock in the mid 90s and they’ve always had a special bond.
‘He’s like my brother,’ she said, adding he threw her name in contention to land a spot on SNL in 2013, though she wasn’t entirely convinced.
‘I was like “Why, those aren’t real comics.” He was like, “Shut up. You sound like an idiot,”‘ Jones recalled.
Rock even wrote the foreward for Jones’ new book, with the comedienne added, ‘He’s just always there to give me the perfect advice when I need it.’
She also revealed that, ‘For a long a** time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a f***ing joke.’
‘I know Will, too… I was like, you couldn’t handle that s**t afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching,’ she said of the slap.
She added that when she spoke to Rock after the slap, she asked why he didn’t run when he saw Smith taking to the stage.
Bond: The comedienne reveals in her book Leslie F***ing Jones (due out September 19) that she met Rock in the mid 90s and they’ve always had a special bond
Brother: ‘He’s like my brother,’ she said, adding he threw her name in contention to land a spot on SNL in 2013, though she wasn’t entirely convinced
Foreword: Rock even wrote the foreward for Jones’ new book, with the comedienne added, ‘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 taking to the stage
Run: ‘I was like, “Chris, when he got up why didn’t you run?” I would’ve been running around that stage like “Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!”‘ Jones admitted
Chris Rock mocks Will Smith and accuses star of ‘selective outrage’
‘I was like, “Chris, when he got up why didn’t you run?” I would’ve been running around that stage like “Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!”‘ Jones admitted.
Several minutes after the slap, Smith won his first Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in King Richard, with Jones admitting he still could have ‘fixed’ the slap during his speech.
‘He could have still fixed it,’ she said, adding she would hav said, ‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I can not accept the Oscar right now because that was f***ing wrong.'”
‘Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That’s what comedians do,” she says of his Selective Outrage standup special that debuted on Netflix this past March.
‘Instead of us going crazy we f***ing go talk about it on the f***ing stage. Thank God we’ve got the stage,’ she admitted.
