Chris Rock made it to the headlines during the Oscars 2022, not for his great comic timing during hosting the show, but for the slap he received from Will Smith . The slap came after the comedian cracked a joke at Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense. Everyone anticipated what his reaction was back then, but he chose to remain quiet. 

Days after the incident, Rock finally opened up about the Oscar slap during a standup show in Boston. “Whoa, OK!” he exclaimed as he entered the stage at the Wilbur Theater. He received a standing ovation, which thundered on for nearly two minutes. He then began his stint by talking about the incident. 

Addressing the elephant in the room, he said, “I don’t have a bunch of shit about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point, I’ll talk about that shit. And it will be serious and funny.”

The response to this came from the audience chanting “Fuck Will Smith!” Rock ignored the diss and continued, “I’m going to tell some jokes,” he said. “It’s nice to just be out,” moving on to start his show. 

Soon after the Oscar slap, the ticket prices for Rock’s show skyrocketed like never before. The Hollywood Reporter stated that as compared to the entirety of March, StubHub, a ticket resale company, experienced a 25x jump in sales for Rock’s tour in 48 hours. Sales, two days after the incident, overtook total March sales. The average price increased from between $150-$200 to $250 (around Rs 19,000) per ticket.

The Academy also condemned Smith’s Oscar slap and issued a statement that read, “We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct and California law.” There are rumours that Will Smith might be asked to return his Oscar as well. 

(Featured Image Credits: Instagram)