Serena Williams Forgives Will Smith For The Oscars' Slap Incident

Serena Williams is probably one of the greatest athletes of all time and unquestionably the greatest women's tennis player of all time. And of course, a wonderful player like her deserves an awesome film about her life. That's why King Richard has been made. Written by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, the film is about how Richard Williams, Venus, and Serena Williams' father, trained and helped his daughters to become the greatest tennis players of all time.

The man who plays the role of the father is the one and only Will Smith, who is known for many amazing roles but who also has been involved in a recent backlash at the Oscars. As you may already know, he slapped his friend Chris Rock in front of everybody because of a joke about his wife. But the problem is that he was present at the Oscars for the film about Serena Williams. And actually, we never really heard her answer about that, until a CBS Interview on Wednesday morning.

In this interview, the host shows Serena Williams a piece of the video of her father when she was still a kid. In this video, her father teaches her that family is the most important thing in life and that she shouldn't be disgusted because of a tennis ball. He tells her that even if tennis is very important, tennis should always stay second in her life.

After that, they talk about the impression Serena had while seeing the movie for the first time. Serena says it was an incredible film, but that was unfortunately overshadowed by a certain event, and of course, she talks about the slap. And that's when she starts saying something very surprising, and also not that surprising if you think about it.

Serena says: "I also feel I have been in a position where I've been under a lot of pressure, and I made a tremendous amount of mistakes, and I'm the kind of person that's said to herself, I've been there, I've made a mistake, It's not the end of the world. We aren't perfect, we're all human and let's just be kind to each other. And I think that's often forgotten a lot". And of course, while we totally understand her words because they can apply to us, we might also remember the recent mistakes she made in court.

4 years ago, Serena Williams was still playing a US Open final against Naomi Osaka. When contesting a decision of the chair empire, who accused Serena Williams of illegal coaching, she totally lost her mind. Tennis fans might remember her exact words: "You owe me an apology, I've never cheated in my life! You need to make an announcement that I didn't get coaching. I never cheat to win, I'd rather lose". The chair umpire penalized Serena because of a gesture her coach has made with his hands, and everybody on TV saw it.

After the game, her coach admitted he was coaching her, and that he shouldn't have done it. But he also said she didn't even look at him, and so that's why she was angry. And this can explain her frustration, maybe she didn't even know why she was being penalized and that's the reason she also broke her racket, something uncommon coming from the 24-Grand Slam winner. She also added that the empire stole a point from her, and she ended up talking with him until the end of the game.

In conclusion, she was fined $17,000 for her behavior during the whole game, including verbal abuse. Patrick McEnroe said that day that it was both Serena and the umpire's fault since none of them has done what they should have done, which means appease the growing tension.

Not a long time ago, Serena tweeted: "Allowing yourself to relax was harder than you ever imagine". The host asks her if if is hard for her to relax and Serena answers: "It's so hard for me to relax, I don't know how to relax. I have to schedule it or I won't do it".

All of that means she wasn't only stressed out on tennis courts but in life in general. And like Will Smith, she forgives his gesture, she is trying to relax these days so that this kind of event will never happen again. And that's incredible to hear that someone who cannot relax won so many tournaments. A Legend.