It was the first time that Rock has spoken directly about the Oscars slap incident, which went viral almost immediately after Smith slapped the comedian live on stage during the awards show last year.

CHRIS ROCK RIPS WILL SMITH WHILE ADDRESSING OSCARS SLAP AND JADA’S ‘ENTANGLEMENTS'

Rock’s special angered thought leaders and influencers on the left, who called it "shocking," with some even arguing that he deserved to be slapped live on air in front of millions of people. 

Carnegie Mellon University professor Uju Anya, who identifies as an "[a]ntiracist" and "feminist" on her official Twitter profile, said that Rock deserved to be assaulted. "Netflix keeps screwing over subscribers. They cancel hit shows people actually wanna watch and give Chris Rock millions of dollars to prove Will Smith was right to slap him."

"You have good takes, this isn’t one of them," one Twitter user told Anya. 

"You have people who care what you think. I am not one of them," the professor shot back.

CHRIS ROCK TAKES AIM AT JADA PINKETT'S AFFAIR AND UNUSUAL MARRIAGE TO WILL SMITH: 'SHE HURT HIM WAY MORE'

NBC reporter Ben Collins said that he couldn’t force himself to watch the special, an edited version of Rock's show in Baltimore. "Got 14 minutes into the Chris Rock special before my subconscious took over, said ‘okay that's enough’ out loud and turned my whole TV off. Pure animal instinct defending against hearing the same joke for the 8,000th time. My soul was dying and took control of my physical self."

"Truly shocking and I didn't have high hopes," Collins added. 

"I didn’t watch that Chris Rock special and I’m not going to. But absolutely nothing being reported today surprises me. Nothing," MSNBC analyst Brittany Packnett Cunningham declared to her over 412,000 followers on Twitter.

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.