Chris Rock is the hands-down winner of that Oscars slap. It's going to make him millions

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The jokes came pouring in after Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars.

What did Will Smith leave on Chris Rock’s face? Fresh Prints! … What’s Will Smith’s favorite kind of music? Rock hits! … And there can be 100 people in a room and 99 won’t slap you, but one Will.

The joke is on everybody except Chris Rock. Despite the indignity of getting popped in the mouth in front of the whole world, he’s the real winner in all this.

He’s the one who’s going to get paid.

Will Smith's personal life is a mess

To recap for the benefit of those who’ve been able to avoid this fiasco, Will Smith was touchy at the 94th Academy Awards Show on March 27. Everything might have looked good for him on the outside, but looks can be deceiving.

He’s in the midst of one of his best years, professionally. His memoir “Will” has been a bestseller since its November release. “Bel-Air,” a dramatic reboot that Smith has executive produced of his hit ’90s sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” has been met with critical acclaim. And his starring role in “King Richard” was about to make him just the fifth African American to win an Oscar for best actor.

Personally, however, Smith’s life has been a wreck. His wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, had been having an affair with a young R&B singer, which became public during the buildup to an album release. Smith discussed it, tearfully, on his wife’s tell-all advice show, “Red Table Talk.”

It’s hard to imagine something more humiliating, and since the Academy Awards all-but double as celebrity roasts, it’s easy to see why Smith was on edge. Would he, one of the most bankable leading men in Hollywood history, be forced to suffer through jokes about his wife’s 2020 entanglement?

So when Chris Rock, noting Jada Pinkett Smith’s closely cropped hair, said he was looking forward to seeing her in “G.I. Jane 2,” Will Smith snapped, walking on stage and slapping Rock across the face.

Critics have picked apart the slap's meaning

Will Smith hits presenter Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars on March 27, 2022.
Will Smith hits presenter Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars on March 27, 2022.

We’ve heard from every quarter since the whack heard ’round the world.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball Hall of Famer turned culture critic, wrote on kareem.substack.com, in an essay titled, “Will Smith did a bad, bad thing,” that “The Black community … takes a direct hit from Smith. One of the main talking points from those supporting the systemic racism in America is characterizing Blacks as more prone to violence and less able to control their emotions.

“Smith just gave comfort to the enemy by providing them with the perfect optics they were dreaming of. Fox News host Jeanine Pirro wasted no time in going full-metal jacket racist by declaring the Oscars are ‘not the hood.’ ”

Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Bernice King, meanwhile said on Twitter, “Anybody who thinks ‘Black people look bad’ after the #Oscars already thought Black people looked bad. Respectability doesn’t cure racism. Be Love, but please don’t think that a person who uses one moment to malign a whole group of people did not do so before that moment.”

Chris Rock hasn't weighed in on any of this

The Atlantic, Variety, The National Review and The New York Times put together a roundtable discussion featuring four opinion writers, coming to the conclusion that “There are no heroes in this story.”

They are wrong, of course.

Rock is the hero if money is the goal of the quest for showbiz fame.

He’s the only person involved who hasn’t publicly weighed in on the palming.

Will Smith apologized.

Jada Pinkett Smith said this was “a season for healing.”

Rock is on tour with several stops out East and a show scheduled for Phoenix’s Arizona Federal Theatre in August. If you want to see him in Phoenix, tickets start at about $120 and climb to more than $800 a seat.

He said at a comedy show in Boston on Wednesday that “I’m still kinda processing what happened. So, at some point, I’ll talk about (it) and it will be serious and funny.”

What will Rock say? Pay up to find out

So anyone who wants Rock’s side is going to have to pay for it, and the suspense builds with every show that he doesn’t discuss what it was like to get slapped by one of the Men in Black.

Will Rock sell the rights to the show to Netflix or HBO? Will he make it available for download off his website? Will he turn the smack into an NFT or a line of tour merchandise?

How will he address it? Will he return to his roots as an acerbic racial critic? The guy who pointed out the absurdity in complimenting Colin Powell as articulate? The guy who explained the racial wealth and achievement gap by saying “the Black man got to fly to get to something the white man can walk to”? The guy who contextualized the difficulties Black women have simply being accepted in mainstream society for wearing their hair as it naturally grows, without wigs, extensions or relaxers?

Or will he stoop and do an hour of tacky “Jada Smith is so bald that she takes a shower and gets brainwashed” jokes?

It could go any of a million ways, and it’s likely to bring Chris Rock any of several million dollars.

Chris Rock might have been the victim of an unprosecuted assault, but he’s the real winner here.

He’s the one who’s going to get paid.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Chris Rock wins. That Oscars slap is going to make him millions