Comedian Chris Rock won a $40 million lawsuit against Will Smith after the actor slapped him at the 2022 Academy Awards.

While there were no credible news reports Rock won a $40 million lawsuit, reports stated he received that figure for hiscomedy specials. Per an article published by film, television and entertainment magazine Hollywood Reporter, the comedian was paid $40 million in a Netflix deal for two comedy specials. This deal was reached in 2016, six years before the slap occurred. Hollywood Reporter’s story cited unnamed sources.However, the multimillion-dollar settlement rumor was not true. There was no publicly available evidence Rock ever filed a lawsuit against Smith, and if the story was true, it would be eminently newsworthy. Due to these factors, we rated this claim “False.”Rock addressed the slap on his 2023 Netflix standup special “Selective Outrage,” which was part of his deal with the streaming service. He said:

Y’all know what happened to me. Getting smacked by Suge Smith. Everybody knows. Everybody f***ing knows. Yes! It happened. I got smacked like a year ago, f***ing last week, I got smacked at the f***ing Oscars by this motherf***er. And people like, “Did it hurt?” It still hurts. I got “Summertime” ringing in my ear. F***ing drums, please.But I’m not a victim, baby. You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying. You will never see it. Never gonna happen.

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People are all, “You guys are fighting all the time.” We’re not fighting. First of all, I know you can’t tell on camera. Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. We’re not the same size, okay? We’re not. This guy mostly does movies with his shirt off. You’ve never seen me do a movie with my shirt off. If I’m in a movie getting open heart surgery, I got on a sweater. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie. You think I auditioned for that part? He played Muhammad Ali. I played Pookie in New Jack City.