If you watched Chris Rock’s “Selective Outrage” Netflix special live on March 4, you saw the comedian wince after he mentioned the wrong Will Smith movie in one of his pivotal jokes of the evening. But if you watch the version that’s now streaming, that mistake has been cut out.
Rock explained that the feud between him and the “King Richard” star and wife Jada Pinkett Smith began when he made a joke at both their expense as the host of the 2016 Oscars, which the Smiths boycotted because Will hadn’t been nominated for the sports drama “Concussion.” Except that Rock accidentally named Smith’s most recent film, the slavery biopic “Emancipation,” instead.
“Years ago, his wife said I should quit the Oscars; I shouldn’t host ’cause her man didn’t get nominated for ‘Emancipation,’ the biggest piece of s— ever!” Rock told his live audience, before realizing his mistake. “No, not ‘Emancipation,’ I f—d up the joke.”
Rock then went on to deliver the joke the way he’d intended: “She started this s—t. She said that me, a f—g grown-a— man, should quit his job because, ‘My husband didn’t get nominated for Concussion,’” he said.
TheWrap has reached out to Netflix for comment.
Rock also riffed on “Emancipation,” when he joked that he watched the 2022 drama, in which Smith played an escaped slave, just so he could see the actor “get whipped.”
