- On Friday,
Chris Rock 's mom spoke out aboutWill Smith slapping her son at theOscars . - In an interview, Rosalie "Rose" Rock said she initially thought
the slap was staged.
Chris Rock's
In an exclusive interview with WIS-TV's Billie Jean Shaw in South Carolina, Rose spoke about the incident at the awards show, when Smith slapped her son on the Oscars stage after the comedian made a joke about
Rose told the outlet she didn't attend the Oscars on March 27 and watched the ceremony at home. She told WIS-TV that she initially thought the slap was staged until Smith "started using obscenities."
"When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us," Rose said, adding that "he really slapped me."
The mom and motivational speaker who is from Andrews, South Carolina, and was visiting Columbia to speak at high schools, according to WIS-TV.
"You reacted to your wife giving you the side-eye and you went and made her day because she was bowled over laughing when it happened," Rose told WIS-TV, speaking about Smith.
Rose said that Chris was excited to present the award for best documentary feature to Questlove, who took the stage after the slap. She told the station she thinks that moment was taken away by Smith's outburst: "No one even heard his speech. No one was able to just be in the moment because everyone was sitting there like, 'What just happened?'"
After watching the moment on TV, Rose said she called her son and told him she was proud of how he reacted to the situation.
Following the slap, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences banned Smith from attending Oscars events for 10 years. When asked what she thought about the Academy's punishment, Rose said she doesn't think his award should be taken away and didn't "see any good way" Smith could have been removed from the ceremony without disrupting the event.
Although Smith publicly apologized to Chris, Rose said she was hurt by the lack of a personal apology from Smith.
"I feel really bad that he never apologized," she said. "I mean his people wrote up a piece saying I apologize to Chris Rock, but you see something like that is personal, you reach out."
As for her son, the comedian has said he won't speak about the altercation until he gets paid.
Rosalie Rock and representatives for Chris Rock and Will Smith, respectively, did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.