Chris Rock's brother says Will Smith's apology wasn't genuine and he wants the Academy to strip Smith of his Oscar
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, the brother of comedian Chris Rock, Kenny Rock, says the video of actor Will Smith slapping his brother at the Oscars "eats" at him because it's hard to see "a loved one being attacked and there’s nothing you can do about it."
“Every time I’m watching the videos, it’s like a rendition that just keeps going over and over in my head," he said. "My brother was no threat to him and you just had no respect for him at that moment. You just belittled him in front of millions of people that watch the show.”
Kenny Rock says he wants the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take away Smith's lead actor Academy Award for his performance in “King Richard,” and bar him from attending future Oscars.
An actor and entrepreneur in his own right, Kenny Rock said his Brother Chris didn't know that Jada Pinkett Smith had alopecia when he made his infamous "GI Jane joke" before he was slapped by Smith.
“The joke was funny,” Kenny Rock said. “It wasn’t hilarious funny, but I know that if he knew that she had alopecia ... he wouldn’t make a joke about that. But he didn’t know.”
“I might have looked at it differently had [Smith] initially apologized when he got on the stage and cried and accepted the award, but he didn’t, so, right there that tells me that it is something else,” Kenny Rock said.
Days later after the slap, Smith wrote a resignation letter to the academy and publicly included Rock and his family as part of his apology, but Kenny Rock says he doesn't accept the apology.
“No, I don’t accept it because I don’t think it was genuine,” Kenny Rock said. “I think his publicist and the people that work under him probably advised him to do that.”
Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times.