It truly is The Slap that keeps on giving and giving and giving ...
Almost five months after the 2022 Oscars, Zoë Kravitz said in a Wall Street Journal interview published Tuesday that she regrets how she responded online to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the March award show.
"Here's a picture of my dress at the show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now," the "The Batman" actor captioned her since-deleted March 29 Instagram post. "And here is a picture of my dress at the party after the award show — where we are apparently screaming profanities and assaulting people on stage now," she wrote in another Instagram post from that day, also now deleted.
When one commenter criticized her take on the situation, saying, "You don't support him defending his wife?," Kravitz simply responded, "Nope."
Several months removed, the 33-year-old is still reflecting on the incident — but with a more conflicted view.
"I'm torn about what to say right now, because I'm supposed to just talk about it; I have very complicated feelings around it," Kravitz told WSJ. "I wish I had handled that differently. And that's okay."
She went on to note that it's a "scary time" to have nuanced opinions and that internet culture is antithetical to the nature of art.
"It's a scary time to have an opinion or to say the wrong thing or to make controversial art or statements or thoughts or anything," the "High Fidelity" star said. "It's mostly scary because art is about conversation. That should, in my opinion, always be the point. The internet is the opposite of conversation. The internet is people putting things out and not taking anything in."
Kravitz referred to herself as an artist and said that the essence of being an artist is not about "everybody loving you" or "thinking you're hot."
"It's about expressing something that will hopefully spark a conversation or inspire people or make them feel seen. I think I'm in a place right now where I don't want to express myself through a caption or a tweet. I want to express myself through art."
Kravitz's revival of The Slap discourse comes a few weeks removed from Smith expressing remorse for the incident in an apology video.
"[D]isappointing people is my central trauma. I hate when I let people down. So it hurts," Smith explained in the video. "It hurts me psychologically and emotionally to know I didn't live up to people's image and impression of me."
"I am deeply remorseful and I'm trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself. ... So I would say to those people, I know it was confusing. I know it was shocking. But I promise you, I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world."
———
