Chris Rock Jokes Paul Pelosi Is ‘Only Guy Who Knows How I Felt’ After Oscars Slap
While toasting Adam Sandler at the Kennedy Center Honors Sunday night, Chris Rock called out the Oscars for snubbing Sandler’s performance in “Uncut Gems.”
Honoring his longtime pal and “Grown Ups” co-star with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Rock said “nobody comes even close” to Sandler’s turn as the gambling-addicted jeweler Howard Ratner in the Safdie brothers’ 2019 film.
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“The Oscars, you know, they’re fucking assholes, and if they don’t want to give my man his props, then we will tonight,” Rock said (via People).
The comedian also joked about his own Oscars experience, referencing the 2022 ceremony when Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Rock. He compared the incident to the attack against Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, who was hospitalized after a man broke into his San Francisco home and beat him with a hammer.
“Paul Pelosi, the only guy who knows how I felt,” Rock said, reportedly eliciting laughter from the audience. “Just me and you, Paul. Just me and you, babe.”
Rock addressed the slap for the first time in depth during his live Netflix special, “Selective Outrage,” which aired March 4 and debuted on the streamer’s top 10 chart.
Rock saved his slap material until the last few minutes of the hour-long special, joking: “They say, ‘words hurt.’ Anybody who says ‘words hurt’ has never been punched in the face.”
“You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith. Everybody knows. Everybody fucking knows,” Rock said. “I got smacked like a year ago… and people are like, ‘Did it hurt?’ It still hurts. I got ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears.”
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