Chris Rock Says Jada Boycotted The Oscars Because She Wasn't Invited

He Rock’d the Oscars.

Academy Awards host Chris Rock tore into the seething #OscarsSoWhite outrage on Oscar night, tackling the racially charged issue with a razor-sharp monologue that pulled no punches.

“This whole no-black-nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. OK? You’ve got to figure that it happened in the ’50s, in the ’60s ... I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years and black people did not protest.

“Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer ... When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.”

It was probably the most real, most down to Earth and most shocking opening Oscar monologue ever.


“The real question everybody wants to know is, is Hollywood racist? ... Is it ‘burning-cross’ racist? No. Is it fetch me some lemonade’ racist? No, no. It’s a different type of racist.”

Rock compared racism in the movie industry with the kind of exclusionary behavior frequently on display in colleges by fraternities and sororities.

“It’s like — ‘We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.’”

Academy members should feel humiliated that the only people of color onstage on Oscar night were presenters and Rock, who had been called upon by critics to step down in protest.

He let them know it.

“They said ‘Chris, you should boycott, Chris, you should quit.’ How come it’s only unemployed people that tell you to quit something? No one with a job ever tells you to quit.”

He continued, “I thought about quitting. I thought about it real hard. But I realized, they’re going to have the Oscars anyway. They’re not going to cancel the Oscars because I quit. And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.


The stakes were high for Rock, as the annual glitzy Hollywood orgy of self-praise had been accused of racism and was boycotted by high profile African-American celebrities like Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee because no black actors were nominated for major awards.

The furor grew when it was clear that snubs came from the mostly white membership of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, which had ignored Will Smith’s critically acclaimed performance in “Concussion” and Idris Elba for his dynamic performance in “Beasts of No Nation.”

Social media responded by roasting the Academy Awards with the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.

Rock — a huge Hollywood star in his own right and one of the funniest and most critically acclaimed African-American comics of all time — rose to the occasion.

“Jada got mad, Jada says she’s not coming, protesting. Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”

Aside from the obvious unbridled racism inside the Academy’s nomination process, it was unfortunate that Rock’s rips on the Academy couldn’t be packaged in the same kind raw style as his blockbuster comedy HBO concerts like “Bring the Pain” and “Bigger and Blacker.”

He’s always been good at his most profane and topical, but the FCC decency rules that police prime-time TV forced Rock to be even better.

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