Tennis great Serena Williams said Wednesday that actor Will Smith deserves some grace for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars almost a year ago.
At the time, Rock was about to present the best documentary award for Questlove’s “Summer of Soul.”
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When anchor Gayle King asked Serena Williams during an interview on “CBS Mornings” how she felt about The Slap — delivered just before Smith won a best actor award for portraying the tennis star’s father in “King Richard” — Williams said her bigger concern was the degree to which the moment robbed attention from the documentary win.
Serena Williams and Will Smith (Getty Images)
“I thought it was such an incredible film, and I feel that there was an incredible film after that with Questlove that kind of was overshadowed,” Williams told King.
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At the same time, she could relate to missteps while under enormous stress.
“But I also feel that I’ve been in a position where I’ve been under a lot of pressure and made a tremendous amount of mistakes,” Williams told King. “And I’m the kind of person that’s like, ‘I’ve been there. I’ve made a mistake. It’s not the end of the world.’ ”
TOPSHOT – US actor Will Smith (R) slaps US actor Chris Rock onstage during the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 27, 2022. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images) (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
The Slap took place during last year’s Academy Awards s ceremony as comedian Chris Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, alluding to her alopecia-induced hair loss. Smith rushed the stage and clocked Rock, yelling, “Keep my wife’s name out your f—ing mouth!”
Smith’s breach of civility was widely censured. He later apologized, but not before being banned from the Academy Awards for 10 years, after an investigation. Rock was mostly mum.
“We’re all imperfect, and we’re all human, and let’s just be kind to each other,” Williams said. “I think that’s often forgotten a lot.”