Marlon Wayans isn’t done speaking on Will Smith’s controversial encounter with Chris Rock during the 94th Academy Awards, revealing he told him to see a therapist.
In a recent interview with Big Boy, Wayans gave some more input on the slap heard around the world, sharing that Smith’s achieved the opposite of what he set out to do during the Oscars by putting way more attention on his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, after slapping Chris Rock on stage.
Marlon Wayans says people in their "right mind" don't assault comics over jokes.
“If somebody’s walking up on my stage, I know that you ain’t coming up to give me five,” Wayans explained during the interview. “Like, at a point, you gotta go, ‘Oh yeah he’s trying to come harm me.’ … You gotta protect yourself. If it that was me, I got an elbow for you. It’s a fight, you come on my stage we fighting. … We do jokes, that’s what we do. You don’t go to a comedy show and be mad when they tell you jokes, that’s what you there for. I think people in they right mind know better, I don’t think people gonna go, ‘I’m gonna get up and slap you.’”
The actor said he gave Will Smith some advice after the Oscars slap.
After recalling a time someone threatened to fight him over a joke he made, Marlon Wayans shared that he initially thought the slap Will Smith gave Chris Rock was fake.
“I thought someone put something in my weed,” he said. “I think the pressure of 30 years of being excellent, that’s hard to do. That man just snapped. You gotta check on your strong friends. … Something was wrong for him to snap, and forget about what he’s been working towards for 30 years.”
However, after realizing that the slap was real, Wayans shared that he encouraged Smith to see a therapist.
“I was like, ‘Hey brother you may want to go get you about three hours of therapy,’” he recalled telling Smith. “15 hours this week, you need to sit down with a therapist and have a long talk. Something is going on with you.’ And that wasn’t him. See, I don’t have that kind of pressure. He’s been Black excellence for 30 years, I’ve been Black alrightness, ain’t too much pressure. … People expect me to do dumb stuff, but him? Nah, not Will.”
Wayans also shared that he reached out to Rock following the incident to ensure the comedian was okay.
Wayans believes Will Smith put all of the attention on Jada Pinkett Smith following the incident
“I talk about it a little bit in my set. I’m not gonna go all the way there, but I think that by trying to take your name out of one person’s mouth, now you put your wife’s name in everybody’s mouth,” the actor shared. “Comedians are terrorists… [Now] everybody got a Will Smith-Chris Rock, you know, Jada joke.”
