Tickets are selling fast to see comedian Chris Rock, who will perform live on Long Island this summer, after the funnyman was infamously slapped by actor Will Smith during the Academy Awards on Sunday.
Rock is scheduled to kick off his ‘Rock Hart: Only Headliners Allowed’ tour with fellow superstar comic Kevin Hart at Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh on July 21. The tour, which run five days across the New York Metro area before ending at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, was announced March 7 and tickets went on sale March 11. Most tickets for the Jones Beach show have already sold two weeks later, according to Live Nation.
“We sold more tickets to see Chris Rock overnight than we did in the past month combined,” TickPick, an online ticket marketplace, tweeted Monday ahead of Rock’s upcoming Boston performances that precede his 30-stop Ego Death World Tour.
Smith — best known for starring in Bad Boys and the Men In Black trilogy — slapped Rock while he was performing on stage during a live broadcast of the Oscars on March 27 after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The incident, witnessed by millions of viewers around the world, immediately went down in history as one of the strangest events to occur at the Oscars.
“G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” Rock joked, alluding to Jada’s short hair that resembles actress Demi Moore’s character who sports a buzzcut in the 1997 action drama. Rock reportedly was unaware Jada lost her hair after being diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder.
Smith, who was seated in the front row, walked on stage, slapped Rock, sat back down and then yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!” About an hour later, Smith won his first Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in King Richard about tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams’ dad.
Smith tearfully apologized to the Academy and his fellow Oscar nominees during his acceptance speech. The following day, he issued a written statement apologizing to Rock.
“I was out of line and I was wrong,” the statement read in part.
Will the slap heard ‘round the world be part of Rock’s latest standup act? Only one way to find out!
Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theatre, Jones Beach State Park, 1000 Ocean Pkwy., Wantagh, jonesbeach.com $59.50-$700. 8 p.m. July 21.
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