Chris Rock Rewriting Oscars Monologue To Address Diversity Protests

The Academy has confirmed US actor and comedian Chris Rock will not be pulling out from his role as host of the Oscars next month following calls of a boycott in protest to the lack of diversity amongst this year's nominees and in fact is currently rewriting his opening monologue to address the controversial topic. 

After a number of actors and film-makers announced they would be boycotting the Oscars in recent days, including Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee, Academy Awards producer Reginald Hudlin told Entertainment Tonight that Rock insisted on scrapping his entire monologue which he finished last week to start over. 

"Chris is hard at work. He and his writing staff locked themselves in a room," Hudlin said.

"As things got a little provocative and exciting, he said, 'I'm throwing out the show I wrote and writing a new show.'

"Chris is that thorough. He's that brilliant, and I have 1000 percent confidence that he will deliver something that people will be talking about for weeks."

Many are outraged that for the second straight year, no black actors or actresses have been nominated for an award.

Last week the Academy released a statement in regards to the protests which has seen the Twitter hashtag, "#OscarsSoWhite" trend since the Oscars nominations were announced and over the weekend they made some big changes to promote diversity, which will include individual members' voting right to be reviewed every ten years.  

Hudlin added that the 50-year-old comedian will not be censored by the Academy.

"You should expect [#OscarsSoWhite jokes]," Hudlin said.

"And, yes, the Academy is ready for him to do that. They're excited about him doing that. They know that's what we need. They know that's what the public wants, and we deliver what the people want."

The gig will mark Rock's second time as Oscars host after he first took on the role in 2005.