Zoe Kravitz has expressed regret over the way she called out Will Smith for slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards in March.
The “Men in Black” star stunned the world when he slapped the comedian onstage after he made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and went on to accept the Best Actor Oscar for “King Richard” around 40 minutes later.
Following the controversy, Zoe took to Instagram to post a snap of her wearing a white backless Saint Laurent dress as she posed at Vanity Fair’s annual Oscars after-party and added the caption, “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.”
But in a new interview for The Wall Street Journal, the “Big Little Lies” actress admitted that she wished she had handled the situation “differently.”
“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,” she said. “I wish I had handled that differently. And that’s okay.”
Zoe went on to note that the vast online response to her comment led her to reconsider how she uses social media.
“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 33-year-old continued. “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… 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.”
Zoe is working on her directorial debut, “P#### Island,” which stars Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum.
Will apologized to Academy members and his peers during his acceptance speech for Best Actor at the film event and followed it up with a lengthy apology on Instagram the next day.
Later, the 53-year-old resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending the Oscars for ten years.