As awards season heads towards the ultimate prize — the 2023 Oscars — it’s impossible not to think back on last year’s Academy Awards, which honored plenty of impressive achievements in film, but was overshadowed by the now-infamous incident in which Will Smith stormed the stage to hit Chris Rock in the face over a joke Rock made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The moment was the most jaw-dropping awards show incident since the La La Land/Moonlight Best Picture mixup of 2017, with many in the room wondering if it was a staged bit, before the uncomfortable silence stretched into realization. Later in the show, the awkward tension was compounded by the fact that Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor — for his title role in the Williams’ sister biopic, King Richard — and took the stage once again, this time with a mix of joy and tearful apology.
As Chris Rock prepares for his history-making live Netflix special, Selective Outrage, it’s expected that he’ll address the incident at length for the first time publicly, as part of the standup set.
