It’s been almost a year since the night. That night. The night that saw the Moonlight vs La La Land mix-up seem like child’s play compared to what played out on the Academy Awards 2022 stage when the world gaped in shock as Will Smith strode on stage and planted a slap across presenter Chris Rock’s face. Reason? Rock had made some uncharitable remarks about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s battle with alopecia.

Smith’s shocking act on stage was followed by him winning his first-ever Oscar, but the damage had been done. The Academy handed Smith a 10-year ban, many studios put the brakes on projects starring Smith and he became a social pariah. Smith extended a half-hearted apology to Rock after his Best Actor win and has since mentioned the incident in passing. But the world has been waiting for Rock to speak. Which he has, on stage, a year later.

Selective Outrage, Rock’s live Netflix special, which dropped on the streaming platform on Sunday, is not just another stand-up special. Just like Rock is no longer just another comedian with SNL stints and Holly credits to his name. For the world has been looking at Rock — over almost 365 days — to speak. About that night.

And Rock, dressed in all-white and wearing a Prince necklace does so, in this special which oxymoronically says it’s “live and edited”. But only in the last eight minutes, where he rips into Smith in a way which won’t shock anyone, and yet (in a way, oxymoronically) Chris Rock in Selective Outrage, now streaming on Netflix makes your eyebrows shoot up every now and then. Everything else he says in the special — including talking about Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z and saying cheekily, “The last thing I need is another mad rapper” — is a warm-up to that moment. For those not in the know, Will Smith was a rapper before he became Bel-Air royalty.

Rock drops hints early on, saying, “Anybody who says ‘words hurt’ has never been punched in the face!” he guffaws, eliciting hoots and ha-has from the audience. But he doesn’t get to it soon, talking about everything from “wokeness” to the Kardashians, from dropping the N-word to complaining about how “selective outrage” tires him. And just as you get restless seeing the minutes ticking by, with Rock not showing any signs of getting to the reason why you tuned in in the first place, he starts.

Rock gets off slow and light. “You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith. Everybody knows. Everybody f***ing knows,” Rock said. “I got smacked like a year ago… and people are like, ‘Did it hurt?’ It still hurts. I got Summertime ringing in my ears,” he laughed, even as his audience laughed with him.

Rock, 58, also clarified that he was the kind of man to take what Smith did to him on his chin (or was it his cheek?) and not go to town crying about it. “I’m not a victim baby. You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle (King) crying. You will never see it… it’s never going to happen. F*** that shit, I took that shit like (Manny) Pacquiao,” he boomed.

Rock, still smiling, then went on to the technicalities of the slap, and how much it hurt physically. “Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You’ve never seen me do a movie with my shirt off. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie. You think I auditioned for that part? I played Pookie in New Jack City. I played a piece of corn in Pootie Tang.”

And suddenly things get serious as Rock starts unloading on Smith, using a large number of expletives and spewing pent-up bile saying that like the title of his special, “Will Smith practises ‘selective outrage’”. “Everybody who really knows, knows I had nothing to do with that shit. I didn’t have any ‘entanglements.’”

Reference to the context? Smith, Rock said, targeted him that night because of what Jada had done to him. “His wife was f***ing her son’s friend. I normally would not talk about this shit… I have no idea why two talented people would do something that f***ing lowdown. We’ve all been cheated on. Everybody in here been cheated on. None of us has ever been interviewed by the person that cheated on us… on television. She hurt him way more than he hurt me.”

Rock was referring to the infamous Red Table Talk episode featuring Smith and Jada, where she admitted to having an affair with another man. The comedian also revealed he tried to get in contact with Smith after the episode aired.

“Everybody in the world called him a b***h. I tried to call the motherf***er. I tried to call that man and give him my condolences. He didn’t pick up.” The comedian then went on to list off all the people in Hollywood who called Smith a b***h” after the Red Table Talk. “Everybody called him a b***h and who does he hit? Me!”

After picking quite a bit on Jada, Rock suddenly changes his tone, sharing his admiration for Will. “I love Will Smith. I have rooted for Will Smith my whole life. I root for this motherfucker.” Rock said. “And now I watch Emancipation just to see him get whooped.”

The burning question... why didn’t he do anything after the slap? “Because I got parents,” Rock explained. “I was raised. And you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people.” Mic-f***ing-drop!