One year after he was slapped in the face by Will Smith on the Academy Awards stage, Chris Rock is ready to finally have his say.
The 58-year-old comedian will present his first stand-up special since last year's Oscars on Saturday night. He's doing it on Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, streaming live on Netflix at 10 p.m. ITS T. Not only will Rock present about an hour of stand-up from the Hippodrome Theater in Baltimore, but Netflix, in its first live show, will close the special with star-studded commentary.
Star: Chris Rock
The pre-show, which will begin at 9:30 p.m. m., will feature Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew McConaughey, Cedric the Entertainer, Ice-T and two presenters from last year's Oscars: Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer. Later, the set of Rock, Dana Carvey and David Spade will receive guests such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Arsenio Hall and JB Smoove.
While Smith has repeatedly apologized and spoken out about the incident since last March, Rock has avoided all the usual platforms celebrities go to to express their feelings about him. He never sat down with Oprah Winfrey and turned down the many media outlets who would have loved to get an exclusive in-depth interview.
Instead, for much of the past year, Rock has been touring with new material in a lengthy series of performances as part of his Ego Death tour. The shows, which had been announced ahead of the 2022 Oscars, have featured performances with Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart.
Along the way, Rock has often worked on jokes and musings on the slapstick, though it's never been more than a fixture of his shows. There is no guarantee that he will speak on Saturday night, but it is expected that he will and has long suggested that this would be his forum of choice.
Rock first broke his public silence on the slap three nights after last year's Oscars ceremony in Boston. "How was your weekend?" he asked the crowd. He added that he was "still processing what happened."
Now, after much processing, Rock will be in the cultural spotlight just a week before the Oscars on March 12, where this year's host Jimmy Kimmel is sure to hit the slap once again. Following the events of last year, Smith resigned from him at the film academy. The academy's board of governors banned Smith from participating in the Oscars and all other academy events for a decade.
At the annual nominees luncheon last month, film academy president Janet Yang lamented how the incident was handled, calling the academy's response "inadequate." Bill Kramer, the academy's executive director, said the academy has since instituted a crisis communications team to prepare for and respond more quickly to the unexpected.
Selective Outrage is Rock's second Netflix special, following 2018's Tamborine. They're part of a special $40 million deal Rock signed with the streamer in 2016.
While rivals have gotten into live streaming and sports, Selective Outrage marks Netflix's first foray into live programming. Netflix, with 231 million global subscribers, also recently signed on to broadcast next year's Screen Actors Guild Awards, signaling that the selective outrage may just be the start of a new trend.
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