Chris Rock once said he let people 'walk over' him since he was a child because he was 'so scared' of his anger: 'From that day on, as my shrink puts it to me, you have been scared and angry ever since'

• Chris Rock once said he'd let people "walk over" him because he was scared to get angry.
• At the Oscars on Sunday, Rock was confronted by Will Smith after joking about Smith's wife.

The comedian Chris Rock recently said that he let people "walk over" him since he was a child and that his therapist concluded Rock was "scared" of his anger.

In a January 12 episode of "Fly on the Wall," a podcast with the former "Saturday Night Live" stars Dana Carvey and David Spade, Rock described being bullied as a child, particularly while being bused to a predominantly white school in Brooklyn, New York.

"It was pretty rough, and it was pretty much every day," Rock said on the podcast. "I had a weird temper. I was the oldest of seven, and I was weirdly smaller than my younger brothers."

Rock recalled one time as a kid when he said someone pushed him around and "disrespected me really bad," prompting him to hit the person with a brick in his book bag.

"I went home, I put a brick in a book bag — this is like a legendary story in my neighborhood — I swung that shit and smacked the guy in the face with this brick and stomped on him, Joe Pesci-style, to the point that we thought he might die," Rock said, adding that he grew increasingly anxious every time a police car drove by in the days after the confrontation.

Now, as an adult, the comedian said his therapist had told him the incident had changed his demeanor.

"Long story short, from that day on, as my shrink puts it to me, you have been scared and angry ever since," Rock said. "The guy you saw was bending over backwards to be nice because I was so scared of my anger."

Rock said his therapist told him "we've got to get you over that incident because you're a nice guy, and this guy brought something out in you and you're so scared of that thing coming out of you again that you let the whole world walk all over you."

"Your friends walk over you, your friends walk over you, your female relationships — everybody just fucks you over," Rock recalled of his therapist's advice, "because somehow they know there's a force field holding you back."

The comedian said he had been processing his emotions in the past year and said "now I can get angry."

"I'm not scared of letting people know how I feel about certain things," he said. "Now, I can say, 'Hey I don't like what you said to me,' without losing my head, without hitting someone on the head with a frickin' brick."

During the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday night, Rock was confronted onstage by Will Smith, who was minutes away from being named best actor, after the comedian made a joke alluding to Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head. Pinkett Smith has acknowledged having the hair-loss condition alopecia.

In response to the jab, Smith walked on the stage to Rock, who was presenting the award for best documentary, and smacked him in the face, to which Rock — still presenting — said: "Oh, wow. Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me."

After taking his seat, Smith twice yelled to Rock, "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!" to which Rock obliged before recovering with a joke, referring to the moment as the "greatest night in the history of television."

On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it "doesn't condone violence of any form" and announced it was launching a formal review into the confrontation and would "explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct, and California law."

The Los Angeles Police Department has said Rock declined to file a police report after the incident.

On Monday, Smith released an apology statement, describing his behavior at the awards show as "unacceptable and inexcusable."

"Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally," Smith said in the statement. "I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong."

He added: "I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be."

The actor, who won for his role as Richard Williams, the father of the tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, in the biopic "King Richard," went on to apologize to the Academy, the event's producers, the audience both in the theater and at home, as well as the Williams family and those who worked on the movie.

"I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us," Smith said. "I am a work in progress."