Marlon Wayans praised fellow comedian Chris Rock for finally addressing last year’s Oscars slap in a new comedy special and said he hopes Rock and Will Smith can reconcile and get past the infamous incident.
“It was good to hear him speak about it. You could tell it was passionate,” Wayans told “CBS Mornings” in an interview Monday. “What you heard was somebody that was hurt, somebody that was finding their way to heal in that moment.”
Rock discussed getting smacked by Smith in a Netflix special that streamed live over the weekend. In it, he brags about taking “that hit like Pacquiao” and suggests he was caught in the crossfire in Smith’s relationship with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Wayans, whose own new comedy special takes a deep dive into the slapping incident, said he’s spoken to the three of them separately and thinks both Rock and Smith are still hurt.
“I think Will’s hurt has nothing to do with Chris. Maybe something that’s happened in Will’s life,” he said. “That was a snap moment. That brother snapped. That’s not Will. Will’s composed.”
Wayans said that if he had his way he would pull the pair into the principal’s office and say, “We have to stop this.”
“I don’t think it’s ever cool to hit somebody. But I do think that at some point we can’t let that just sit there,” he said. “I think for our children, for our people, for the people, that we just can’t sit in pain and not come to terms. And I think we can all make mistakes, but at some point… let’s sit down and come to the table and fix this.”
In the new comedy special “Marlon Wayans: God Loves Me,” which just dropped on HBO Max, the “White Chicks” and “Scary Movie” star discusses his life and career through the lens of the Academy Awards incident. He said he focused on the slap partly because he’s known Rock since he was a child and was impacted by the incident.
“I felt like I had to talk about it because it affected my journey,” he said.
Wayans is also guest-hosting “The Daily Show” this week. The show airs on Comedy Central, which is part of CBS News’ parent company Paramount Global.
