Chris Rock has hosted the Oscars twice, in 2005 and 2016, but neither stint, no matter how funny, was as memorable as his appearance as a presenter at this year’s ceremony. The comic has only recently started joking about getting slapped by Will Smith at this year’s ceremony. At a show in Phoenix on Sunday night, he even revealed the ceremony’s top brass wanted him back for more — while making a pretty strange joke about a murdered woman.
As per AZ Central, the comic claimed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asked him to host the 2023 ceremony, perhaps as a way to make things right — or, more likely, because it would be a huge ratings boon. Rock said he declined. He then joked that he wouldn’t want to go back to the place where he was hit, saying it would be like Nicole Brown Simpson deciding “to go back to the restaurant” where she left her eyeglasses right before she was murdered.
It’s a strange reference, even for an “edgy” comic like Rock, and it turned a lot of heads on social media. At the show, he also joked about how he and Smith are not exactly on the same footing, fight-wise, and not only because Smith once played Muhammad Ali.
“He’s bigger than me,” Rock told the crowd. “The state of Nevada would not sanction a fight between me and Will Smith.” He admitted that the slap hurt.
Since the incident about six months ago — which happened less than a half hour before he was handed an Academy Award for the film King Richard — Smith has laid low, even going to India for meditation and self-reflection. Recently he’s baby-stepped back into making social media jokes again, however hesitantly.
(Via AZ Central)