Contrary to Reports, Chris Rock 'Has Made No Decisions' About Oscar Monologue Jokes

Chris Rock (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

By Erik Hayden

Chris Rock hasn’t yet finalized how he’ll confront #OscarsSoWhite during the Academy Awards.

On Monday, his rep shot down the idea that the host rewrote his opening speech for the glitzy Feb. 28 awards evening televised on ABC, as show producer Reginald Hudlin said over the weekend.

“Regarding Reggie Hudlin’s comments about Chris Rock’s Oscar hosting duties, neither he nor anyone else speaks for Chris,” his publicist, Leslie Sloane, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Chris has made no decisions about the content of the show. All will be revealed on February 28th. We will not comment further on this,” Sloane added.

Hudlin, who was tapped as co-producer of the Oscars this year along with sports programming vet David Hill, stated at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards Nominee Luncheon that there would be changes to the monologue.

“Chris is hard at work. He and his writing staff locked themselves in a room,” Hudlin said to Entertainment Tonight. “As things got a little provocative and exciting, he said, ‘I’m throwing out the show I wrote and writing a new show.’”

Rock, who has joked that the Oscars were the “white BET Awards,” has been under increasing pressure to respond to the snowballing issue of diversity at the honors since the nominees in the acting categories this year were revealed to be all-white.

After the nominees were unveiled, Spike Lee, along with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and others, have said they are skipping the show this year. The criticism of the show prompted the Academy to unveil dramatic changes to its organizational structure on Friday to encourage diversity in its ranks.