In 2022, the biggest story in entertainment was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in retaliation for jokes that Rock got off at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, as host of the 94th Academy Awards ceremony.
Smith walked on stage, slapped Rock, and returned to his seat before telling him to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth. Smith would later apologize to Rock and his family, and Rock would eventually speak about it as well, but nothing was ever the same for either man.
At the time, Smith showed contrition for his act, but the Academy punished him with a 10-year ban from the Oscars. The Hollywood star was, though, allowed to stay at the ceremony that evening, eventually taking home the coveted “Best Actor” award for his role as Venus and Serena Williams’ father in the film “King Richard.”
In the years since, Rock has been mostly silent about it all (though his brother Tony Rock hasn’t), addressing it in a Netflix special “Selective Outrage,” and Smith has slowly but surely navigated his way back into mainstream appeal, including his enduring role as Mike Lowery in the blockbuster film, “Bad Boys For Life,” part of the “Bad Boys” franchise with Martin Lawrence. In March 2025, Smith even released a new album (his first in 20 years) titled “Based on a True Story.”
Smith just launched his first solo headline tour in support of the project, which mostly hits cities across Europe. While promoting the tour, he stopped by Charlie Sloth’s show and dropped a freestyle in his “Fire In The Booth” series. He had some…interesting things to say about the now, three-year-old incident.
“Now I’m not the type of man to move in malicious ways, and I am too grown to play childish games / If you talking crazy out your face up on the stage and disrespect me on the stage, expect me on the stage / Jokers dish it out, cry out when it’s time to take it, City full of real ones wasn’t raised to fake it.”
Smith never says Rock’s name over the course of his “freestyle”– which should be a song called “The Illest”– but the not-so-subliminal shots aimed at Chris Rock are noticeable. Even if they aren’t directed toward Rock, they surely sound like they are, and in hip-hop (and ego), that’s all that matters. Especially considering that Smith has, again, shown contrition publicly.
Maybe things have changed in the world of Will Smith, and those early apologies have given way to new information and/or feelings about what’s happened. Maybe he’s just letting the world know that kind of kid comes from West Philadelphia, where he was born and raised. Or maybe he’s just drumming up publicity. Who knows?
What we do know is that this latest freestyle at the very least fanned whatever remaining flames were simmering of an incident that changed the trajectory of two of America’s most famous men. Guess we’ll have to see what happens from here.
