Chris Rock sought counselling after Will Smith slapped him
Leslie Jones, a lifelong friend of Chris Rock, has revealed the comedian needed to seek out counselling after Will Smith slapped him at the Academy Awards ceremony in 2022 for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Jones made the admission to People while promoting her new memoir, in which Rock penned the foreword. Additionally, she spoke of the long-term effects of being assaulted by Smith in front of millions.
“That shit was humiliating,” Jones said. “It really affected him. People need to understand his daughters; his parents saw that. He had to go to counselling with his daughters.”
Rock and Jones have been friends since the 1990s, with her admitting that she was “infuriated” by the incident at the Academy Awards. The actor added to the publication, “You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there. I was so fucking mad on so many levels.”
“Chris Rock did a fucking joke,” Jones continued. “I know Will, too… I was like, you couldn’t handle that shit afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.”
After the incident occurred, Smith apologised to Rock, resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending any of their events for ten years. “I just didn’t realise; I wasn’t thinking about how many people got hurt in that moment,” he said in a video statement.
Watch Smith’s apology in full below.
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