Chris Rock and Will Smith have a lengthy history of feuding before the “King Richard” star took a shot at the Oscars in 2022.
Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, were the targets of some stinging comments during their hosting of the Academy Awards in 2016.
Pinkett Smith’s public declaration to boycott the program after another year of all-white acting candidates was mocked by Rock.
“Jada has stated that she will not be attending. ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ I wondered. Is Jada going to skip the Oscars? Jada’s boycott of the Oscars is akin to my boycott of Rihanna’s underwear. “I wasn’t invited!” exclaims the narrator. He made a joke at the time.
Smith, whose name had been mentioned as a possible Oscar nominee for his work in the film, was also mocked by Rock.
“Will was not nominated for ‘Concussion.’ I get it. You get mad. It’s not fair that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated. You’re right,” he said. “It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for ‘Wild Wild West.’”
When asked about the jokes, the “Girls Trip” star seemed to take them in stride.
She told X17 a week after the 2016 Oscars, “It comes with the territory, dear.” “Hey, look, it’s part of the job, but we’ve got to keep moving.” It’s critical that we keep going forward. It’s critical that we keep going forward. There’s a lot of stuff we have to deal with right now, a lot of stuff in our planet. “We have to keep things going.”
And when asked about it while filming in New York, Smith simply smiled and gave a peace sign.
Rock and Smith appeared together on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
However, it appears that the pair has not moved on from Rock’s crude remarks.
“Jada, I love you, ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” the 57-year-old “Saturday Night Live” star quipped at this year’s Oscars, causing 50-year-old Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia and has shaved her head, to roll her eyes.
“G.I. Jane” is a 1997 film featuring Demi Moore as a bald-headed soldier.
Smith, 53, began by laughing, but then marched on stage and swung at a stunned Rock. Although the audio was censored, lip readers deduced that an enraged Smith yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth!”
Rock tried to defend the joke, but the newly minted Oscar winner was not having it and kept screaming, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth.”
“That was the greatest night in the history of television,” Rock sagely noted.