Willow Smith says she wasn't rocked by dad Will Smith's Oscars slap and accepts her family for 'being human'
- Willow Smith broke her silence over the Oscar slap in an interview with Billboard.
- The singer and "Red Table Talk" host said the incident didn't "rock me as much as my own internal demons."
For the first time since the incident, Willow Smith publicly spoke out about her dad Will Smith's infamous Oscars slap in an interview with Billboard's Taylor Mims.
During the 2022 Oscars ceremony, Smith slapped comedian and Academy Awards host Chris Rock for joking about wife Jada Pinkett Smith's alopecia.
"[The slap didn't] rock me as much as my own internal demons," Willow told the outlet.
"I see my whole family as being human, and I love and accept them for all their humanness," she told Billboard. "Because of the position that we're in, our humanness sometimes isn't accepted, and we're expected to act in a way that isn't conducive to a healthy human life and isn't conducive to being honest."
The slap, which immediately took social media by storm, didn't affect Willow's creative process, she told Billboard.
While Willow's comments to Billboard mark the first time she's addressed the controversy head-on, she appeared to reference the incident two days after the Oscars on Instagram. On March 29, Willow shared a quote from motivational speaker Jay Shetty that read: "You know who's going through a lot right now? Literally everyone. Just be kind."
In June, Pinkett Smith used her "Red Table Talk" platform to discuss alopecia and voiced her wish that all involved parties would reconcile and heal.
In July, Smith broke his silence in a YouTube video, apologizing to Rock and expressing his "hurt."
Insider's Jason Guerrasio reported that Smith has reached out to Rock and is looking to talk whenever he's "ready." In addition to the apology, Smith expressed regret for his actions. "Disappointing people is my central trauma. I hate when I let people down," he said during the video.
In April after resigning from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Smith was also banned from the ceremony for 10 years.