Did you hear the one about the asshole actor who physically assaulted one of the greatest comedians ever over a mediocre joke? Well, Chris Rock knows the punchline, and he’ll be delivering it on Saturday night during his new Netflix special.
While Will Smith has concluded his “apology tour”, Chris Rock is gearing up for his first special in years, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, which will premiere on Netflix on Saturday, March 4th. It is part of his Ego Death World Tour, which has incorporated pieces of material about the Oscars slap. The upcoming Netflix special, however, is expected to have Rock at his most vocal.
As an example of how Chris Rock has worked the incident into his set, at a recent show, he told the audience, “The thing people wanna know … did it hurt? Hell yeah it hurt. He played Muhammad Ali! I played Pookie [a reference to his character in 1991’s New Jack City]. Even in animated movies I’m a zebra, he’s a fucking shark. I got hit so hard, I heard ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears…Will Smith is shirtless in his movies. If you see me in a movie getting open heart surgery, I’m gonna have a sweater on.”
Despite admitting being a fan of Will Smith at one point, Chris Rock doesn’t appear to share the sentiment anymore, telling the crowd, “The other day, I watched Emancipation [in which Smith plays a runaway slave] just so I could watch him getting whipped.”
Chris Rock: Selective Outrage will be Netflix’s first livestreamed standup special (airing from Baltimore, Maryland), a potentially innovative moment for how comedy could be presented on streaming services. During the Ego Death World Tour, Rock teased the special by saying, “People expect me to talk about the bullshit, I’m not going to talk about it right now, I’ll get to it eventually, on Netflix.” Rock released his first Netflix special, Tamborine, in 2018.
Will you be watching Chris Rock’s Netflix special when it airs live on Saturday? Do you think he’ll have a lot of material on Will Smith? Let us know in the comments section below!