Chris Rock Had A Surprising Reason For Watching Will Smith's 'Emancipation' Movie

During his new stand-up special on Netflix titled Selective Outrage, Rock joked, “The other day, I watched Emancipation just so I could watch him getting whipped.”

In the historical drama, Smith plays a slave named Peter who escapes from a Louisiana plantation and fights with Abraham Lincoln’s army during the American Civil War.

It’s understandable why the comedian would feel that way. At last year’s Academy Awards, the 54-year-old Oscar-winning actor infamously slapped him onstage after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. The actress has a condition called alopecia areata, which causes hair loss.

As Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature Film, he said, “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane II, can’t wait to see it, aight?” He was referring to the iconic bald character played by Demi Moore.

Smith appeared to laugh at the joke at first, but changed his demeanor after seeing his wife’s unamused expression.

He then got up onstage and hit the Spiral actor in full view of some 16 million spectators, before returning to his seat and shouting, “Keep my wife's name out of your f***ing mouth!”

Smith received major backlash as well as a 10-year ban from the Oscars because of the attack.

Rock, meanwhile, has never really addressed the assault in the year since it happened, aside from brief references to the incident.

Until now.

Now, he’s going all out in his stand-up special.

“Will Smith practices selective outrage,” he said. “People who are in the know, know that s**t had nothing to do with me.”

He believed Smith attacked him because he had some anger issues over his marriage problems.

Rock was referring to Pinkett Smith’s affair with rapper August Alsina. After she admitted to the dalliance in a televised conversation with her husband, Smith became a sort of laughingstock in the industry.

“We have all been cheated on,” he said in his routine. “She hurt him way more than he ever hurt me.”

Back then, Rock said he sympathized with the King Richard actor and even tried to call him to offer support.

That was why it was shocking that he took out his anger on the comedian on that stage at the Academy Awards. What made it worse was that he “rooted for Will Smith my whole life.”

Of course, he no longer does and is now feeling some schadenfreude over seeing him getting assaulted himself, even though it’s only in a movie.

He got super candid in his comedy routine, saying he was attacked by Suge Smith, a mashup of the names of the Ali actor and convicted felon, Marion “Suge” Knight Jr.

“He is significantly bigger than me,” he said of the 6’2” star.

“You will never see me on camera with my shirt off. Will played Muhammad Ali. I played Pookie,” he added, referring to his character in the 1991 movie, New Jack City.

Catch more of his hilariously scathing routine. Selective Outrage is currently streaming on Netflix.