After Hollywood notables such as Will Smith, spouse Jada Pinkett-Smith and Spike Lee announced their intention to boycott this year’s Oscars, in protest at lack of nominations for non-white actors, host Chris Rock faced pressure to do likewise.  Instead, the comedian stood his ground – but don’t expect him to go soft on the Academy.  As the collection of one-liners below show, the 51-year-old entertainer, who last hosted the Academy awards in 2005, has a history of biting, razor-sharp comedy, and isn’t afraid to tackle the big issues – race, politics, slavery and gun crime all fall under his comedic radar.  Back in January, Rock warned fans that he’d thrown out his original material and written a brand new show, in response to the #OscarsSowhite controversy. Until then, here’s a taste of what to expect, in our round-up of Rock’s funniest lines.  The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you'd done that in the movie, you'd have won an Oscar, girl."  We got so much food in America we’re allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain’t allergic to s---. You think anyone in Rwanda’s got a f------ lactose intolerance?  I hope that Live Earth ends global warming the same way the Live Aid ended world poverty.  I'm watching the news … Tupac Shakur was assassinated, Biggie Smalls assassinated, struck down by assassin's bullets … no, they wasn't. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Malcolm X was assassinated, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Them two n----s got shot! S---, I love Tupac, I love Biggie, but school will be open on their birthday.  You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named “Bush,” “Dick” and “Colin.” Need I say more?  I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? Hey, if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law.  My mother was real cheap. Okay, practical. She would never pay a bill on time. "If they ain't cutting it off, I ain't paying." She would say, "The first bill is a suggestion. If they really want you to pay it, then they'll come and tap on your window." Her whole philosphy of life was: if you die owing money, then you've won.  You know the stripper myth? There's a stripper myth, that's being perpetuated throughout society. The myth is, I'm strippin' to pay my tuition. No you're not! There's no strippers in college! There's no clear heels in biology! S---, man. I didn't know they had a college that only took one-dollar bills. And if they got so many strippers at college, how come I never got a smart lap dance? I never got a girl that sat on my lap and said, "If I was you, I would diversify my portfolio. You know, ever since the end of the Cold War, I find NATO obsolete."  I was born a suspect. Came out my mother’s stomach; anything that happened in a three-block radius, I was a suspect! White America is so scared of black teenagers. I walk down the streets, women are grabbing hold of their Mace, everybody’s tucking in their chains, people are hitting their car doors, people get into karate stances. I look up in the air, there’s a bunch of old white ladies on the phone - they’ll dial nine-one and just wait for me to do something.  So, you can say “black people have made progress”, but to say “black people have made progress” would mean we deserved to be segregated. The reality is: white people got less crazy.  Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to.  Black people yelling "racism!" White people yelling "reverse racism!" Chinese people yelling "sideways racism!" And the Indians ain't yelling s---, 'cause they dead. So everybody bitching about how bad their people got it: nobody got it worse than the American Indian. Everyone needs to calm the f--- down.  Yeah, I love being famous. It’s almost like being white, y’know?  I had a cop pull me over the other day, scared me so bad, made me think I stole my own car. “Get out of the car, get out of the f------ car! You stole this car!” I was like, “Damn, maybe I did!”  Relationships, easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie! ‘Cause you can’t get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can’t get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative.  Married guys know more about women than single guys. Single guys have girlfriends. Girlfriends are always auditioning, always on their best behavior. Wives are like Supreme Court justices. They do whatever the f--- they want.  If you haven't contemplated murder, you ain't been in love. If you haven't seriously thought about killing a motherf-----, you ain't been in love. If you haven't had a can of rat poison in your hand and looked at it for 45 minutes straight, you ain't been in love. If you haven't bought a shovel and a bag and a rug to roll their ass up in, you ain't been in love. If you haven't practiced your alibi in front of the mirror, you ain't been in love.  Fellas, once you get married you become your wife's pet. Cause women like to get their husbands together, that don't even know each other, and have like a grown-man play date. Put you in a room with some other married motherf-----, and go "he likes baseball, just like you". Then you're in some room with some f------ stranger, going "I like baseball".  White man makes guns? No problem. Black rapper says "gun"? Congressional hearing. "Oh, my God, that n----- said gun, and he rhymed it with fun!"  You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. We need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost $5000… $5000 for a bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost $5000 there would be no more innocent bystanders.
As Chris Rock prepares to host the Academy awards - his most controversial gig yet - we take a look at his acerbic, brilliant stand-up