Rose Rock, Chris Rock's mother, said that at first, while watching the Academy Awards ceremony, she thought that the slapping incident was staged, right until Will Smith yelled at the comedian from his seat: “Take my wife's name out your f*****g mouth.”
“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 Rock told South Carolina television station WIS-TV.
She added that after the incident no one heard Chris Rock's speech and that Smith's actions ruined it as everybody was just wondering “what just happened?”
"When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us. He really slapped me," she added, "because when you hurt my child, you hurt me." Speaking about Will Smith’s 10-year ban from attending any Academy events, she said “what does that mean? You don’t even go every year.”
According to her, the apology Will Smith posted on his Instagram* account the day after the ceremony, was not genuine.
Earlier, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences banned Will Smith from their events for 10 years after the incident at the Oscars.
The Hollywood actor took to the stage at the Oscars on 27 March and slapped Chris Rock because of the comedian's joke about Smith's wife's "very short hair" - Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia.
Later, when the actor took the stage to receive the Best Actor award for King Richard, Smith apologised, and said that it was important in life to protect one’s family.
*Instagram is banned in Russia over extremist activity.