Comedian Leslie Jones, a close friend of Chris Rock, claims that the impact of the slap heard ’round the world affected not only him, but his family.
Jones told People that beyond the “humiliating” action of Will Smith against Rock, the incident, “really affected him. People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters.”
She added, “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. 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!’”
Jones was grateful that Rock could talk out his feelings on a larger stage.
“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.”
