Chris Rock won’t be back cracking wise as the host of next year’s Oscars.
“He is not hosting the Academy Awards,” the comedian’s publicist, Matt Labov, said Friday in a brief statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. He did not elaborate.
Labov told The New York Times that Rock didn’t want to do the show “in perpetuity” but would “like to do it again down the road.”
The 2005 telecast was Rock’s first as host. His barbs skewering stars like Jude Law, Tobey Maguire and others alienated some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Rock’s comments prompted Sean Penn, when he took the stage later, to defend Law as “one of our finest actors.”
———-
The Personals page was compiled by Cheryl Bowles from Tribune news services and staff reports.
