Chris Rock makes first public comments after Will Smith smack. Hear what he said

In his first public comments since a physical confrontation with Will Smith at the Academy Awards, Chris Rock addressed the highly-discussed incident.

Rock received roaring applause during his comedy show in Boston on Wednesday, March 30 — three days after Smith smacked him on-stage at the Oscars.

“How was your weekend?” he began, heard in audio obtained by Variety. “I don’t have a bunch of ---- about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point I’ll talk about that ----. And it will be serious and funny.”

Warning: The audio clip below contains explicit language.

The show marked the beginning of a 32-city comedy tour. Earlier this week, ticket marketplace TickPick tweeted that it had “sold more tickets to see Chris Rock overnight than we did in the past month combined.”

Tickets for the Boston show were as much as $1,200 on the resale market, MassLive reported. Before the Oscars, tickets were selling for just over $100.

Rock has not publicly apologized for his joke directed at Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars. Rock had joked about the shaved head of Pinkett Smith, who has spoken publicly in recent years about her diagnosis of alopecia.

After accepting the Oscar for best actor for “King Richard,” Will Smith apologized to the Academy for the smack and his explicit language directed at Rock. He later apologized to Rock on social media.

“I was out of line and I was wrong,” Smith said. ”I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 8:17 AM with the headline "Chris Rock makes first public comments after Will Smith smack. Hear what he said."