During the 94th Academy Awards, actor Will Smith walked onstage and slapped comedian Chris Rock. The famously dubbed incident ‘The Slap Heard ‘Round the World,’ happened right before Smith was about to get his much anticipated Academy Award for his outstanding performance as “King Richard.” But, while giving his speech, he issued an apology in front of the whole crowd for the slap, apparently leaving Serena Williams embarrassed over a “crazy father” take.

Audiences were enthralled with the drama playing out on their TV screens as Smith’s apology echoed through the silent auditorium, highlighting similarities between him and King Richard. Take a look at how the 23-time Grand Slam champion reacted at that point.

In the same event, after the infamous incident, the American actor made a tearful apology to everyone present there and cracked a joke midway related to his character in King Richard. He stated, “I want to apologize to the academy; I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees.” 

Following that, there was a moment when the camera focused on Serena Williams, as she looked embarrassed when Smith talked about ‘crazy’ King Richard. While she was quite amused by the comment, she covered her face with her hands and took it as a light-hearted joke.

Smith continued, “Art imitates life; I look like the crazy father, just like they say. I look like crazy father just like they said about Richard Williams, but love will make you do crazy things.” On the other hand, Serena and Venus Williams‘ half-brother LeSane disagreed with the American actor’s perception of his father’s temperament.

He stated, “My dad is not a violent man unless, you know, someone is coming at him in an aggressive manner. I don’t know if my dad holds grudges against anyone and my dad will always take the high road. That’s something I admire about my dad.”

Nonetheless, last year, Williams opened up about how the infamous Oscar slap somehow shadowed the greatness of the film depicting her father.

When Serena addressed the Will Smith Oscar incident 

Last year, the 43-year-old American tennis legend, in a conversation with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, shared her thoughts on the Oscar slap incident. She said, “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.”

She was referring to the incident where Smith slapped Rock in the face as the latter was on stage presenting Questlove with the Best Documentary Feature award. She went on to imply indirectly that Smith should be forgiven for acting out the way he did as “we’re all human” and prone to making “mistakes”. However, she was unhappy with the way things turned out in the end.