“I think what Will did was selfish,” Patel wrote Wednesday evening. “It robbed the category of its moment. It robbed the other excellent and amazing films of their moment to be acknowledged in what was a STRONG year for docs.”
Rock’s comment was inaccurate on two accounts. First, there were three men receiving the award alongside Questlove: Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein. Second, Patel isn’t White, he is South Asian.
“The reason that makes me SO SO VERY ANGRY is because I was so proud to be one of a handful of South Asians to have ever won an Oscar in the history of the award,” he wrote. “So with my family and friends watching, Chris Rock lumped me in as 1 of ‘4 white guys. (Nevermind the disrespect to [Dinerstein] and [Fyvolent] for not even saying their names, and the inaccuracy of us being 3 producers not 4).”
Patel went on to say he later didn’t have “the stomach” to watch the ceremony, and he “probably never will.”
CNN has reached out to Patel’s representatives for comment.
“I don’t have a bunch of s*** about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I had like a whole show I wrote before this weekend,” he told the crowd. “And I’m still kind of processing what happened, so at some point I’ll talk about that s***. And it’ll be serious and it’ll be funny, but right now I’m going to tell some jokes.”