Leslie Jones Says Chris Rock Went To Counseling Following “Humiliating” Oscars Slap

Leslie Jones and Chris Rock have been pals in comedy since the mid-90s — so when the actor was infamously slapped by Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars, Jones was naturally “infuriated.”

When Rock made a joke at the expense of Jada Pinkett Smith at the prestigious awards ceremony, Smith rushed the stage and smacked him across the face on live television. While speaking to People, Jones — who watched the spectacle from home — recalled the slap heard ’round the world.

“It made me so infuriated,” she told the outlet. “You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there. I was so fucking mad on so many levels.”

Jones added, “For a long ass time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a fucking joke. I know Will, too … I was like, ‘You couldn’t handle that shit afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.'”

The Saturday Night Live alum remembered asking Rock why he didn’t run, joking that she would’ve been “running around that stage” telling Smith to “calm down” and demanding that Pinkett Smith “calm [her] man.”

According to Jones, Smith “could have still fixed it” when he returned to the stage moments later to deliver his acceptance speech for Best Actor. If it were up to her, he would’ve said something along the lines of, “‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I cannot accept the Oscar right now because that was fucking wrong.'”

The star also revealed the aftermath of the situation for Rock and his family — who ultimately had to attend counseling.

“That shit was humiliating. It really affected him,” she said. “People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters.”

Fortunately, Rock was able to channel his feelings into his work when he headlined Netflix‘s first-ever live standup special, Selective Outrage. In the special, Rock took aim at Pinkett Smith’s “entanglement” with her son’s friend during her marriage to Smith — and claimed that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star took his anger out on him, someone “he knows he can beat.”

“Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That’s what comedians do,” Jones said. “Instead of us going crazy, we fucking go talk about it on the fucking stage. Thank God we’ve got the stage.”