Leslie Jones is detailing how Chris Rock coped following the infamous 2022 Oscars slap from Will Smith.
The former “Saturday Night Live” star, whose friendship with fellow comedian Rock dates back to the 1990s as included in her upcoming memoir “Leslie F*king Jones,” told People magazine that Rock began therapy with his children following the “humiliating” onstage moment.
“That shit was humiliating. It really affected him,” Jones said. “People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters.”
She added of Rock’s later stand-up special “Selective Outrage” that addressed the slap, “Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That’s what comedians do. Instead of us going crazy we fucking go talk about it on the fucking stage. Thank God we’ve got the stage.”
Jones noted that she personally was “so fucking mad” about the situation, especially after knowing Smith as well.
“It made me so infuriated. You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there [to the 2022 Oscars],” Jones said. “I was so fucking mad on so many levels. For a long ass time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a fucking joke. I know Will, too…I was like, you couldn’t handle that shit afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.”
She later told Rock, “I was like, ‘Chris, when he got up, why didn’t you run?’ I would’ve been running around that stage like, ‘Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!’”
The “Ghostbusters” actress continued that Smith “could have still fixed it” when he got back onstage to accept the Best Actor award for “King Richard.” According to Jones, Smith should have said, “‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I can not accept the Oscar right now because that was fucking wrong.’”
Smith later apologized via Instagram video to Rock and revealed he was “fogged out” during the aftermath of the outburst.
As for Rock, Jones said that the actor encouraged her to audition for “SNL” in 2013.
“He’s like my brother,” she said. “I was like ‘Why, those aren’t real comics.’ He was like, ‘Shut up. You sound like an idiot.’ He’s just always there to give me the perfect advice when I need it.”
