21 Months After Souring King Richard’s Success Story, Will Smith Gets a ‘Holy’ Reassurance From His Wife

The on-screen father of Serena Williams and Venus Williams, Will Smith might have been able to fix his marital issues with his wife after the controversial slap at the 94th Academy Awards. In this award show, Smith also won the Best Actor award for the role of Williams sister’s father in King Richards. However, he slapped the host Chris Rock, who made a joke out of his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaven head due to alopecia. Not to mention, this incident caught more limelight than Will Smith stealing the hearts of many as Serena Williams’s father in King Richards.

While the entire community was taken aback by Smith’s behavior, Serena Williams’s childhood coach, Rick Macci defended Smith. He referred to Smith’s actions as very similar to Serena’s actual father Richard Williams. Now Jada Pinkett Smith also believes that slap saved their marriage!

Will Smith’s wife recalls the slap scene at the Oscars saved their marriage

It was just Rick Macci who spoke for Will Smith. He noted that he was fully into Richard Williams’s character at that event. Now Serena and Venus Williams’s actual father is known to be very protective about the family. So, Macci thought he would react the same way Will Smith did.

Now Smith’s wife seemed to take a similar path as she explained that slap in a positive way. Jada Smith remembers it now as a savior of their nearly broken marriage. She said recently- “I nearly didn’t even attend the Oscars that year, but I’m glad I did, I call it the “holy slap” now because so many positive things came after it.” 

Will Smith truly did an outstanding job as the father of tennis’s legendary sister’s biopic. Now almost 21 months after the incident, people somehow realized that Smith was too vested in his character that he made such an unexpected action at that award show.

How did Rick Macci defend the on-screen Richard Williams Will Smith after his controversial Academy Award behavior?

Serena and Venus Williams’s childhood coach, Rick Macci always had support for Will Smith. He is the one to speak about Will Smith living as Richard Williams when he slapped Chris Rock for his comment about Jada Smith.

Read more: King Richard: What Happened to Former World No.1 Jennifer Capriati Who Inspired Venus Williams to Play Juniors

Macci commented-“he one thing about Richard, he was such a staunch defender of his family. Now this all happened during the pandemic, so Will would go home and even talk to his kids like Richard, he would still be in costume at home. So this was a drawn-out process, and I really believe that during that moment, when he walked up on stage and kinda greeted Chris Rock, he thought he was Richard.”

Now that Will Smith’s wife also believes in the power of the slap as a gesture of being protective of the family, she feels she might not be able to leave her husband even though they live separately. Therefore, the role of Richard Williams truly has worked for Hollywood’s great Will Smith in real life. What do you think?

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