Days after the infamous slapgate at the Oscars, Chris Rock finally addressed the incident during his comedy show. While performing at the Wilbur Theater, Chris Rock was greeted with a standing ovation, reported Variety. He began the show asking the audience, "How was your weekend?" which was reciprocated with a loud laughter, Variety reports. During the performance, Chris said, "I don't have a bunch of s*** 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." Ahead of the show, the comedian said, "I'm going to tell some jokes. It's nice to just be out."
Chris Rock and Will Smith made headlines when the 94th Academy Awards aired, where Chris Rock appeared on the stage to present an award, where he made a joke about Will Smith's wife and actor Jada Pinkett Smith being in "G.I. Jane" because of her appearance, which triggered the The Pursuit Of Happyness actor, who slapped Chris Rock and returned to his seat and yelled, "Keep my wife's name out of your f*****g mouth." Later, while receiving the Best Actor trophy, Will Smith apologised to the Academy and its nominees but not to Chris. He only apologised to him a day later on social media.
Earlier it was reported that Chris Rock's comedy tour witnessed a surge in the sales after the infamous Oscars incident. An online marketplace for events tickets called Tick Pick tweeted, "We sold more tickets to see Chris Rock overnight than we did in the past month combined." Meanwhile, Variety reported that the platform "claim that ticket prices have surged since Sunday night, going up from a minimum of $46 per ticket on March 18 to a minimum of $341.
Meanwhile, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released a statement that read, "While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently."