Chris Rock is facing criticism for making a quip about the horrific murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. The comic, 57, said he was approached to emcee the Oscars next year after Will Smith notoriously punched him at the 2022 ceremony during a stand-up performance in Phoenix on Sunday.

According to the Arizona Republic, Rock then made a joke about not returning to the Academy Awards because doing so would be like asking Simpson “to go back to the restaurant” where she left her glasses before she was murdered.

In one of the most well-known instances in history, Simpson’s ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, was tried for murder after she was allegedly murdered in 1994. Although the decision was contentious, he was found not guilty.

Social media users criticized Rock for equating the two occurrences, and they are now alleging that perhaps Smith, 53, attacked him because he made a “G.I. Jane” remark about Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldness. Smith has alopecia, which is why she is bald.

One tweet received more than 14,000 “likes,” with the message, “The more Chris Rock says, the further you start to realize why Will Smith slapped fire outta him.”

Another remarked ironically, “Yeah, Chris Rock – You getting smacked for talking s-t and the heinous murder of Nicole Brown Simpson are exactly the same thing. Fantastic analogy. You give a damn about abuse against women. It is now entirely evident to us.

Gregory Anderson, a photojournalist, concurred and suggested that perhaps Ron Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, who died with Nicole, should have the “honor” of smacking Rock for the poor joke right now. He continued, “To compare what occurred to him to what occurred to Nicole Brown Simpson is simply disrespectful and not at all humorous.

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Others, in contrast, hand, criticized Rock for not receiving as much backlash when Pinkett-Smith was the target of his joke and suggested that this was a result that she being a “black woman.”