Chris Rock returned to the stage on March 30 for the first time since Will Smith slapped him at the Academy Awards.
Rock was greeted by a loud audience at his show in Boston’s Wilbur Theater, receiving standing ovations that lasted several minutes.
“Let me be all misty and s—,” Rock said.
Tonight in a sold out show #ChrisRock
after a thunderous 3-minute standing ovation at his first standup show since #WillSmith slapped his face at the #Oscars #Boston pic.twitter.com/26ueU7yPJi— Sn00pster (@sn00pdad) March 31, 2022
Rock continued, “I don’t have a bunch of s— about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I had like a whole show I wrote before this weekend. And I’m still kind of processing what happened, so at some point, I’ll talk about that s—. And it’ll be serious and it’ll be funny, but right now I’m going to tell some jokes.”
Hours later, Rock returned to the stage for a second show and was once again given a standing ovation.
“I wrote a show before all this nonsense happened,” Rock said.
There were rumors that he and Smith had also reconciled after the incident, but Rock said, “I haven’t talked to anyone, despite what you heard.”
In a statement on March 30, the Academy said that Smith was asked to leave after the incident and refused. They recognized that they “could have handled the situation differently.”
