Rock's mother opened up about the incident during an exclusive interview with local South Carolina news station WIS-TV.
Chris Rock's mother, Rosalie Rock, is speaking out for the first time following the incident involving her son and Will Smith at the 94th annual Academy Awards.
It all went down on March 27, when Will got up out of his seat, walked up to Chris onstage and slapped him in the face during the 2022 Oscars. Will physically confronted the comedian after Chris made a joke about Jada Pinkett's shaved head, after pointing to her from the stage and saying, "Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it."
In an exclusive interview with local South Carolina news station WIS-TV, Rosalie, who goes by Rose, told WIS’ Billie Jean Shaw she thought the slap was staged at first, it wasn't until Will started shouting at Chris that she knew something was off.
"You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye and you went and made her day because she was mulled over laughing when it happened," Rose, who usually attends the awards show with her son, said.
Jada's negative reaction was visible on TV, though moments later she was also captured on video laughing and clapping after Chris said, "Will Smith just slapped the s**t out of me."
The sound on the Oscars broadcast cut out after Rock said Smith's name in reaction, but as the camera panned back to Will, you could clearly read what Smith shouted at Rock.
"Keep my wife's name out of your f**king mouth," Will can be seen shouting back at the comedian.
Rose told the TV station that it felt like she was getting slapped when she saw Will hit her son on live television.
"When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us. He really slapped me," she said. "Because when you hurt my child, you hurt me."
"No one even heard his speech. No one was able to just be in the moment because everyone was sitting there like, 'what just happened?'" she added of the award Chris was presenting to Questlove when the slap occurred.
Later that night, Will won his first Oscar for his portrayal of Richard Williams in King Richard, and while it was unclear what the Academy's reaction would be to the incident, earlier this month, they made the decision to ban Will -- who resigned from the Academy shortly after the altercation -- from attending any events -- in person or virtually -- for the next 10 years.
When asked about how the Academy handled the situation Rose said, "I wouldn’t take his award away, and I don’t see any good way they could have taken him out without disrupting."
She did, however, take issue with Will's apology.
"I feel really bad that he never apologized," Rose added. "I mean his people wrote up a piece saying I apologize to Chris Rock, but you see something like that is personal, you reach out."
Just days after the Oscars, Chris' brother, Tony, also addressed the incident on Twitter during his weekly 20 questions segment, to answer fan questions. He went on to retweet a handful of responses to fan questions via his verified account.
“How is your brother doing,” one user asked, in which Tony replied, “All of them are fine.”
When it came to how he felt about Will's apology, Tony's response was clear.
"Do you approve of the apology?" another user asked, to which Tony replied with a simple, “No.”
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