Eduardo Yáñez Chimes In With His Thoughts on the Will Smith Incident: ‘You Have To Put Yourself in His Shoes’
We’ve all heard a million takes on the way that Will Smith’s slapping Chris Rock at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony was either an act of love for his family or something completely uncalled for.
And now, Mexican actor Eduardo Yáñez — someone who had a similar incident on the red carpet years ago — chimed in with his thoughts.
For those who don’t know, the actor who starred in the telenovela “Destilando Amor” assaulted a reporter in 2017 at a presentation for the streaming platform Pantaya. The reporter allegedly asked Yáñez about a GoFundMe his son created to fix his car and Yáñez, who has a stained relationship with his son, slapped the reporter in response.
After the assault, Yáñez and the reporter reached a settlement in court, where it is known that Yañez paid the reporter $250,000.
Despite this, the actor from “Corazón Salvaje” said on the show Miembros al Aire that he doesn’t regret it: “I know what I did was the wrong way to act and wasn’t the correct thing to do. But I’d never regret it. I’m real and that came from the heart and that’s how it is.”
And Yáñez didn’t hold back when asked about Will Smith’s slap during an interview on Vivalavi, saying “There are colleagues who, when they’re on a microphone, feel very emboldened and disrespect others.”
Yáñez continued, “You have to give respect to get respect and those words were bullying.” Empathizing with Will Smith, the actor said you have to put yourself in his shoes. “What they did to her was terrible, making fun of a sickness or condition is terrible,” Yáñez concluded.
Social media users have taken to Twitter to compare the two and make many unforgettable memes. But one of the strangest coincidences people noticed was that Eugenio Derbez, the star of “CODA” witnessed both incidents. Now that’s a coincidence that slaps.