The “slap that rocked the world” is nothing short of what people have come to expect from the privileged elites of a scandal-ridden Hollywood.
At the 94th Academy Awards Sunday night, Will Smith smacked Chris Rock after he made alopecia jokes about his wife, Jada Pickett-Smith.
The sudden violent outburst that shocked audiences is certainly a first, but it calls to mind past award shows controversies: like the time Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift as she won Grammy, when Nicki Minaj called out Miley Cyrus at the VMAs and when Adrien Brody laid a kiss on Halle Berry after winning an Oscar.
For the most part, however, Rock, 57, has avoided scandal, sticking to his stand-up tours, hosting gigs and Netflix specials. And when he isn’t preforming, he prefers to stay at home far from the Hollywood scene.
In fact, for the better part of the last 22 years, Rock has lived in a $3 million home in the suburbs of New Jersey — modest by any celebrity standard.
An early member of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, Rock purchased this four-bedroom, four-bathroom estate in the upscale Alpine neighborhood back in 2001 — about a 45-minute drive to New York City.
Rock had been married to Malaak Compton-Rock since 1996 but following his divorce in 2016, the comic decided to remain in the neighborhood, presumably to stay close to his two children Lola, 19, and Zahra, 17. Today, he owns another home nearby that has yet to be identified, but his family home remains in his name in public records.
“He goes to [his ex-wife’s] home all the time,” an insider told The Post. “He only got the other house because his marriage ended. But Chris is still on very good terms with Malaak. He loves his daughters and spends a lot of time of them.”
Reps for Rock did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
In his 2018 “Tamborine” Netflix special, Rock admitted that for many years, he didn’t get to enjoy all that his former digs had to offer because he didn’t know how to swim for most of his life.
“Do you know how f–king hard it is for a grown-up to learn how to swim? You’ve got to not be scared to die,” he said in an 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter at the time.
“The other day, this guy says to me, ‘OK, you’re going to dive into the deep end and swim to the other side,’ and I’m like, ‘Are you f–king crazy?’ But then I dove into the deep end and I swam to the other side, and it’s a metaphor for what I’ve been trying to do during this time.”
Spanning over 10,300 square feet, the colonial-style property is situated on more than 2 acres of land. At the time Rock purchased the home, it was newly built.
Rock also owned a Brooklyn townhouse for over 20 years before unloading it for $3.35 million in 2017. Throughout the years, he mostly rented out the residence.
But just because Rock isn’t living in Hollywood doesn’t mean he’s done hanging with celebrity friends. His neighbors in Alpine include Lil Kim, Ja Rule, Rev Run, Stevie Wonder and Tracy Morgan. Past residents include Jay-Z, P. Diddy, and Eddie Murphy.
In 2012, Forbes ranked Alpine as America’s most expensive ZIP code, with a median home price of $4.25 million.