Breaking his media silence for the first time since his infamous altercation with Will Smith at this year’s Academy Awards, Chris Rock has declared that while he is not ready to talk about the incident just yet, when he does “it will be serious and funny.”
“Whoa, OK!” said Rock at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston this past Wednesday as he was received with a standing ovation that went on for almost two minutes, to which the comedian replied, “Yo, let me do the show!”
Rock then asked, “How was your weekend?” explaining that he didn’t “have a bunch of s—t about what happened” in his routine, adding, “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,” he declared. “So, at some point I’ll talk about that shit. And it will be serious and funny.”
According to the audio obtained by the outlet, one of the members of the audience yelled, “F—k Will Smith!” but the comedian chose to ignore it and move on, saying, “I’m just going to tell some jokes. It’s nice to just be out.”
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Just a few days prior, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that ticket sales for Rock’s stand-up comedy shows have skyrocketed in the 48 hours since he was slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars.
Ticket exchange resale company StubHub said that daily sales had increased over 25 times each of the past two days ahead of Rock’s show, disclosing that cumulative sales were more than the entirety of Rock’s tour sales in March.
A spokesperson for StubHub, Mike Silveira, told The Hollywood Reporter, “Now that we are 48 hours from Sunday evening, it’s evident that demand for Chris Rock shows has jumped dramatically, based on our ticket buying trends on StubHub.”
“At this stage in his tour, on an average day, we’d expect to see a spike in sales in the 24 or 48 hours prior to a show date as last-minute sales roll in — but it is incredibly unusual to see the spike we have experienced,” Silveira explained.
He concluded, “With daily sales remarkably more than twenty-five times higher than the average we have seen in the last month, we anticipate this interest will likely sustain for a short time.”
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Rock is reportedly not pressing charges against Will Smith for physically assaulting him at the Academy Awards show.
As per a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department shared to social media by The Guardian senior editor Lois Beckett, “LAPD investigative entities are aware of an incident between two individuals during the Academy Awards program. The incident involved one individual slapping another. The individual involved has declined to file a police report.”
“If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report,” the statement reportedly concluded.
Even more recently, the Oscars producer Will Packer confirmed that Rock is not pressing charges against Smith.
Variety reports that the producer will address the altercation during an upcoming interview with ABC News set to air on Good Morning America on Friday the 1st of April.
As per the outlet, though the LAPD were at the Oscars on Sunday ready to arrest Smith for assaulting Rock, the comedian insisted he did not want to press charges against the recently-awarded Oscar winner.
“They were saying, you know, this is battery, was a word they used in that moment. [LAPD] said, ‘We will go get him. We are prepared. We’re prepared to get him right now. You can press charges, we can arrest him,’” Packer disclosed.
The Oscars producer went on, “They were laying out the options. And as they were talking, Chris was — he was being very dismissive of those options. He was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine.’ And even to the point where I said, ‘Rock, let them finish.’ The LAPD officers finished laying out what his options were and they said, ‘Would you like us to take any action?’ And he said no. He said no.”
What do you make of Rock’s comments on his infamous altercation with Smith? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below or on social media.