4 Times Zoë Kravitz Sparked Major Backlash — And Why Fans Are Still Split

The Breakdown: Zoë Kravitz is a talented actress, director, and producer who has given impressive performances in film and television projects alike. But her fame has sometimes been overshadowed by her controversial takes.

Zoë Kravitz was destined for fame. Her mother, Lisa Bonet, was a star on two of the most popular Black sitcoms to air on TV (The Cosby Show and A Different World). Her father, Lenny Kravitz, is the rockstar behind hits like “American Woman.”

Kravitz inherited both her parents’ good looks and their talents. Like her father, she’s a rock musician in a group called LOLAWOLF. But she’s mostly followed in her mother’s footsteps, and has built an impressive career as an actress, producer, and director. Her credits include X-Men: First Class (2011), Big Little Lies (2017-2019) and High Fidelity (2020).

As much as The Batman actress has earned her spot amongst Hollywood’s elite, she’s also built a reputation for making divisive statements. Here are four Zoë Kravitz controversies you should know about.

Way back in 2013, when Kravitz was 24, she starred alongside Jaden Smith in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi film After Earth (2013). When she was interviewed about her part in the film, she gushed to V Magazine about her co-star, but the comments left many readers feeling uneasy.

“There were moments that I was hanging out with Jaden and thinking, ‘I can’t believe you’re 14, I have to check myself, like what I say to you,’” she said. “He has so much personality and so much swag, he is so much cooler than I am. And he’s so handsome, I was always like, ‘When you’re older, you know, we’ll hang out … Nope, that’s inappropriate, you’re 14.’”

Like Kravitz pointed out, her comments were inappropriate considering the 10-year age gap between her and Smith and the fact that he was a minor at the time. However, the situation mostly flew under the radar until another controversy brought them back into the spotlight in 2022.

Twitter users dug up Kravitz’s questionable comments about Jaden Smith after she seemed to take a dig at his father, Will.

At the 2022 Oscar Awards, while hosting the event, Chris Rock jokingly called Jada Pinkett Smith G.I. Jane, referencing her bald head. Pinkett Smith, who had revealed her struggles with alopecia just days before, was visibly hurt by the joke.

Will Smith leaped to his wife’s defense, bounding onto the stage to slap Rock in the face and warn him to keep Pinkett Smith’s name out of his mouth.

Many celebrities reacted publicly about the slap, including Zoë, who seemed to reference the altercation in two Instagram captions. Beneath a picture of herself on the Oscars red carpet, she wrote, “Here’s a picture of my dress at the show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now.”

Under a photo of herself at the Vanity Fair After Party, she repeated the reference, posting, “and 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.”

Kravitz came under immediate fire for her reference to the Will Smith slap, with some X (formerly Twitter) users bringing up her troublesome comments about Jaden Smith. The actress quickly deleted the posts amid the backlash, and months later, she shared with The Wall Street Journal that she wished she had handled the incident differently.

“It’s a scary time to have an opinion,” she added, “or say the wrong thing or to make controversial art or statements or thoughts or anything.”

This situation doesn’t involve any of the Smiths, but Instagram does feature again. In 2017, Kravitz took to the social media platform to post an image of herself with a Jean-Michel Basquiat quote that reads, “I am not a Black artist. I am an artist.”

Kravitz expanded on Basquiat’s quote in her caption, writing: “I think I’ll go take a Black walk. And have a Black talk. With my black friend. Maybe have some black lunch. Watch a black movie, sing a black song, smoke a black bong… then take a black nap in my black bed in my black sheets and have some back [sic] dreams. ……Happy to be black. Just don’t need to say it in front of everything.”

The comments left a sour taste in some fans’ mouths as they felt that Kravitz was denying or downplaying her Blackness. Her caption was especially confusing in light of previous comments she had made about race just a month before when she appeared on the cover of Allure.

“The older I get, the more I experience life, I am identifying more and more with being black, and what that means—being more and more proud of that and feeling connected to my roots and my history,” she’d said in the interview.

The two quotes feel like they are in conflict with each other. But that reflects Kravitz’s struggle with racial identity, something she’s been open about throughout the years. In a 2022 interview with the Observer, she admitted that she had to learn to accept her Blackness.

Though some fans have speculated that Kravitz’s history of controversy has stunted her career, she’s continued to forge ahead in Hollywood. In 2024, she made her directorial debut with the film Blink Twice.

Kravitz explained that the movie, which falls into a genre of films that reference the #MeToo Movement, is meant to explore themes of power and abuse and “highlight the absurdity of what women are asked to do in society.”

The feminist angle of Blink Twice made it difficult for some fans to reconcile Kravitz’s opinions on directors who faced sexual assault allegations. Kravitz shared that two of her favorite movies — Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant — are both directed by Roman Polanski. Polanski was famously arrested in 1977 for drugging and assaulting a minor and faced several other allegations of sexual assault.

When questioned about her love of Polanski’s work despite his sordid history, Kravitz said, “It’s okay that somebody bad was involved in something good. What are we supposed to do, get rid of America?”

Kravitz echoes a popular sentiment about the importance of separating the art from the artist. But her position does seem to undercut her critique of powerful men and the harm they commit against women.

In light of Kravitz’s own list of controversies, fans who want to enjoy her work may need to follow her example and separate the art from the artist.