THE SLAP: DAY 312

Serena Williams Breaks Silence on Will Smith’s Oscars Slap to Call for Kindness

“It’s not the end of the world,” the “King Richard” producer said.

Minutes before Will Smith won an Academy Award for portraying Serena Williams’ father in the biopic King Richard, he threw The Slap Heard ‘Round The World at Chris Rock. Nearly a year later, in an interview with Gayle King broadcast on Wednesday, Williams broke her silence 0n the incident. “I thought [King Richard] was such an incredible film, and I feel that there was an incredible film after that with Questlove [Summer of Soul] that kind of was overshadowed,” she told King on CBS Mornings. “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, 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.” Williams continued, “We’re all imperfect, and we’re all human, and let’s just be kind to each other. So, that’s often forgotten a lot.” It remains to be seen whether the Academy will take the tennis legend’s words to heart, but hey—the voting body has been swayed by stranger grassroots pushes.