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The sister of the murdered Nicole Brown Simpson has slammed comedian Chris Rock for a "beyond distasteful" joke about her dead sister.
Tanya Brown took to Instagram to criticize Rock after he turned her sister's high-profile murder into a comedy routine.
Rock told an audience in Phoenix, Arizona, that he would not return to host next year's Oscars after being slapped by Will Smith at the ceremony in March, comparing it to a moment in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
He said that hosting the Oscars again would be like asking Brown Simpson "to go back to the restaurant" where she left a pair of glasses the night she was stabbed to death in 1994.
On June 12, that year, the last night of Brown Simpson's life, she had dinner with family at an Italian restaurant.
After arriving home, she called the restaurant when she realized she lost her prescription sunglasses, which were quickly found outside the main entrance.
Her friend Ronald Goldman heard about the call and offered to take the glasses to her home. The two were later found dead, feet away from each other, outside Brown Simpson's house.
Her ex-husband O.J. Simpson, a broadcaster, actor and NFL Hall of Fame running back at the time, was arrested for their murders.
The high-profile trial ended in 1995, with a jury acquitting Simpson, but he was later found responsible for their deaths in a civil lawsuit. The trial also highlighted issues of intimate family violence.
In her post, Brown shared a photo of Rock backstage at the Oscars, just moments before the slap from Smith, and she criticized him for his comments.
"Nothing Is more lovely then [sic] to wake up on a Tuesday morning (Not) with TMZ calling you saying Chris Rock made a horrible 'joke' about Nicole," she captioned the post. "BEYOND distasteful!"
Brown continued: "Nothing funny about his joke towards Jada as she suffers from a physical condition and nothing funny about equating an Oscar host invitation to a double homicide.
"I always thought he was funny, but he crossed the line with this one. In other words, Y'all!!!! Stop using my sister, OJ and Ron part of your cricking comedy act. There are families behind this tragedy!"
At the 2022 Academy Awards on March 27, Rock, an award presenter, was slapped by Smith on live television after making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Rock joked about her baldness and suggested she could star in G.I. Jane 2, but Pinkett Smith has the medical condition alopecia, and Rock not only earned the immediate wrath of Smith with the slap, but that of thousands of disability advocates around the world.
After being struck, Rock said that Smith "just smacked the s**t out of me," as the actor returned to his seat and, visibly angry, repeatedly shouted toward Rock to "keep my wife's name out of your f**king mouth!"
Smith won the Oscar for best actor for his role in King Richard just minutes after the incident.
The 53-year-old actor attempted to explain his violent reaction and apologizing to the Academy and fellow nominees during his acceptance speech.
Just days after the slap, O.J. Simpson weighed in on the controversy, arguing he has shown more restraint when dealing with jokes from comedians than Smith did at the Oscars.
Simpson wrote in a tweet about his own restraint in avoiding violent reactions to jokes and included the caption: "He was wrong but I understand the sentiment."
"It was unfortunate, I think Will was wrong," Simpson said in the video. "Uh, look, I understood the feeling...In my life, I've been through a lot of crap. I was raising two young kids and every comedian in the country had an O.J. routine, and don't think I wouldn't want to b-slap a couple of those guys."
"But you've gotta accept it, it's humor," Simpson added. "And I didn't even think that was all that egregious. I thought it was a semi-unfunny joke, but I don't know, I don't get it."
Simpson went on to say that he would have been sentenced to "life without" parole if he had lashed out in a similar manner, while referencing his 2008 conviction on robbery and kidnapping charges in Las Vegas.
Simpson served almost nine years in prison before being released in 2017 and has since been freed from parole.
Newsweek has reached out to Rock's publicist for comment.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more