The Tragic True Life Story Of Will Smith
Will Smith's career has evolved in extraordinary fashion since his early days as a rapper in the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. The versatile entertainer originally made a name for himself in music, but he found real fame with a starring role as himself in the 1990s sitcom series, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." He charmed audiences with his wit and talent, gaining a foothold in Hollywood that would eventually lead to a string of hit films, as well as an Academy Award for best actor.
While he's nothing short of a grand success today, it was a rocky road to get here, riddled with traumatic events, tragic losses, and self-proclaimed failures. He's had his fair share of roadblocks, and they've taken a toll over the years. From a troubled childhood to legal issues, box office bombs, and marriage missteps, no one can say that it was smooth sailing for Smith. Here's the entire, true-life story behind the MC turned movie maker.
Smith said he watched his father abuse his mother
As described in heartbreaking detail in his memoir, "Will," Will Smith claims to have survived a household riddled with domestic violence. His father, whom Will endearingly referred to as "Daddio," was an Air Force veteran, and Smith's hero. However, he was also violent, had alcoholism, and tormented Will and his mother. "Like many sons, I worshipped my father, but he also terrified me," wrote Smith in the memoir.
Smith went on to share a particularly disturbing incident: "When I was 9 years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood." Watching his own mother fall victim in such a visceral manner enraged the young Will so much, that he actually considered taking matters into his own hands. "As a child, I'd always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother ... I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down and easily get away with it."
While he admits that this thought crossed his mind more than once, he also expresses in the memoir that he did not, in fact, ever exact his vengeance, a level-headed decision he reflects on with relief in the long run. "Thank God we're judged by our actions and not our trauma-driven, inner outbursts."
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
He contemplated suicide as a teenager
While Will Smith admits that not physically interfering with his father's abuse was the right decision, it's also a choice that led to one of his darkest moments. At the age of 13, his mother left to escape the grips of his father. "She'd had enough," he explained in the memoir. "She went to work the next morning and didn't come home." Following her departure, Smith says he contemplated suicide, and the only thing that saved him was the words of his grandma, Gigi. "What kept ringing in my mind was a faint memory of hearing Gigi say that killing yourself was a sin."
While he ultimately decided against taking his own life, this traumatic event sparked a downward inner spiral for Will. He felt like he had let his mother down, and that's a thought that still plagues him today. "There is that subtle and silent feeling always pulsating in the back of my mind," wrote Will in his memoir, "that I am a coward; that I have failed; that I am sorry, Mom-Mom, so sorry."
While speaking at "An Evening of Stories with Friends" at the Savoy Theatre, Will discussed the shocking revelations included in his memoir, claiming he had kept these feelings repressed deep inside of him for years, but he felt better once he was finally able to share them. "It's so cathartic to get it out," confessed Will (via The Independent), "That self-exploration, to be honest with yourself and to move out into your life, your relationships ... with that honesty, is excruciating. But I would recommend it."
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
He said he used comedy to survive
In his memoir, Will Smith recalls the helplessness of standing by during his father's abuse, noting that while the incident made him feel like a "coward," it also paved the way for the man he would eventually become. It traumatized him, but it also turned him into an entertainer. "I decided to be funny," wrote Smith, "I wanted to please and placate him because as long as Daddio was laughing and smiling, I believed, we would be safe."
In an interview with GQ in 2021, Smith elaborated on the logic of deciding to use comedy, rather than his fists, to block the wrath of his father. "Comedy defuses all negativity. It is impossible to be angry, hateful, or violent when you're doubled over laughing."
While it's not the ideal circumstances to hone your craft, this early training would prove fruitful for Smith, as his comedic talents later earned him a place on national television with the hit sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." It's not a perfect rags-to-riches story, but at least Smith came out of it with something to show.
He hit 'rock bottom' in jail
It was 1989, and 20-year-old Will Smith had just won the first-ever award for best rap performance at the Grammys. Smith was riding high, but that would all come to a sobering end one fateful night in March when he found himself locked up in the West Philadelphia police station under charges of aggravated assault.
According to the National Enquirer, Smith had gotten into an argument with record promoter William Hendricks, after which he set his bodyguard, Charles "Charlie Mack" Alston, on him. His bodyguard obliged, and Hendricks came out of the ordeal near-blind.
The charges were eventually dropped, and Smith has never admitted to ordering the attack. However, he did describe this as a "rock bottom" experience in an exclusive interview with Oprah. "When it rains, it pours. So getting into the fight at the radio station, Charlie punching the dude that landed me in jail," Smith lamented. "I am laying on the floor in a jail cell and I am like, 'You've got to be kidding me! I won a Grammy eight months ago.'"
He had a run-in with the IRS
While Will Smith was beginning to rake in the dough after his 1989 album, "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper," recorded alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff, he wasn't quite rolling in it yet. As Smith explains in a YouTube video titled "How I Became The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," he was experiencing money problems due to the underperformance of his second album. "I had spent most of my money. Like all of it ... I was like, broke broke."
Smith goes on to explain that this landed him in trouble with the IRS, as he failed to send in his tax return, but he notes that something good did come out of the experience. During this time, his girlfriend had encouraged him to make some money with a performance on Arsenio Hall's talk show. While at the show, Smith met an executive named Benny Medina, who was workshopping a TV series, which eventually became "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
Smith had struck gold, but he still had some unpaid debts. By the time he started with the show in 1990, he owed $2.8 million in back taxes. Many of his assets and big-ticket purchases were seized and, while starring in the series, 70% of his paycheck was going to the IRS. It wasn't until the third season that the tab was fully paid. In an interview with Oprah, Smith emphasizes that this whole ordeal wasn't a masterminded, calculated effort to avoid his taxes, it was just an oversight: "I just wasn't paying attention to that stuff."
He called his first marriage 'the ultimate failure'
As described in an interview with GQ, Will Smith's first marriage to Sheree Zampino was less than perfect, and she actually served him with divorce papers on Valentine's Day. In a "Red Table Talk" with his second wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will described this as a particularly brutal experience. "Divorce was the worst thing in my adult life," he said. "Divorce was the ultimate failure for me."
Smith actually began dating Pinkett while he was still married to Zampino, and the three of them tried to hammer out a civilized co-parenting situation together, but that quickly fell apart. In a "Red Table Talk" between Pinkett and Zampino, Pinkett confessed that she probably could've handled the situation better: "Because I did not understand marriage, I did not understand divorce, I probably should have fell back."
To Will's credit, he did try to keep the peace between the two women, especially when Pinkett overstepped. "Well, I want you to know that Will Smith let me have it," Jada admitted to Zampino, adding, "His take was, 'That is Trey's mother, and that's just not your place.'"
He lost a father figure
Actor James Avery is loved by many for his role as Uncle Phil on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." In 2013, after Avery died due to complications from open-heart surgery, Will Smith took to social media to share his love and respect for his co-star. "Some of my greatest lessons in Acting, Living and being a respectable human being came through James Avery," wrote Smith in a Facebook post. "Every young man needs an Uncle Phil. Rest in Peace."
Smith later elaborated on how much Avery meant to him during the show's 2020 reunion special. "James Avery was this six-foot-four, 300-pound stage-trained Shakespearean beast and I'm the little rapper from Philly under him and I wanted him to think I was good," recalled Smith (via The Independent).
Later that year, in a tribute video on his YouTube channel, Smith emphasized everything that Avery was to him and his castmates: "He was Uncle Phil, father, protector, teacher, defender, preacher, to everybody," he explained. "Everybody on the set was his kids." Avery was playing a part as everyone's favorite uncle, but to Smith, he was serving as a real-life father figure.
He ruined his co-star's career
Will Smith found a father figure on "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," but he also made some enemies — namely Janet Hubert, the actress who played Aunt Viv. The two reportedly didn't get along on set, and after she left at the end of Season 3 due to "creative differences," Smith trash-talked her on a radio show, saying, "I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show because I know she is going to dog me in the press," (via The Sun).
The two eventually made up during the reunion special, but Hubert did make sure to let Smith know just how much damage he had done with his negative comments, asserting, "Calling a black woman 'difficult' in Hollywood, is the kiss of death. It's the kiss of death." She held back tears as she continued, "You took my career away of 30-something years."
Smith responded with an apology expressing remorse for his past behavior: "I could not do a 30-year celebration of this show and not celebrate you, celebrate your contribution and celebrate your contribution to my life," he said. "The person I want to be is someone who protects you, not someone who unleashes dark on you."
He led his son into a losing film
Prior to its release in 2013, Will Smith had big plans for his sci-fi film, "After Earth," even crossing his fingers for a possible franchise series. However, those dreams were shattered when the film flopped at the box office, earning only $26.5 million during its opening week, a sharp downturn from the $40 million it was expected to generate. While the financial loss definitely didn't help, it wasn't the money that hurt Smith most.
The true reason why Smith regrets making "After Earth" is because he had brought his son, Jaden Smith, on board for the film. Following the movie's release, Jaden was relentlessly mocked for his performance, earning Razzies for worst actor, worst supporting actor, and worst screen combo, an accolade he shared with his father.
In an interview with Esquire, Smith said that seeing his son ridiculed like this tore him up. "That was the most painful failure in my career," Will lamented. "'Wild Wild West' was less painful than 'After Earth' because my son was involved in 'After Earth' and I led him into it. That was excruciating."
His father died of cancer
As if the flop of "After Earth" wasn't difficult enough, only half an hour after receiving the poor box office numbers and processing the immense weight of this failure, Will Smith got the call that his father had been diagnosed with cancer. It was also strange timing, as only three weeks prior, Smith had signed on to "Collateral Beauty," a movie about cancer.
In an interview with USA Today, Smith recalled the experience of dealing with this tragic news while preparing for the role, and how that actually benefited his relationship with his father. "Having to face my father's mortality and impending death while I was preparing for this role gave us a really wonderful interaction during that time," said Smith. "It was a beautiful way to prepare for a movie and an even more majestic way to say goodbye to my father."
During his event, "Will Smith: An Evening of Stories with Friends," Smith further elaborated on this bittersweet experience. "It's something interesting when somebody knows that they're gonna die," recalled Smith. "We tuned into one another in a way that we never had. He was given six weeks but he ended up living for three months" (via People).
He's dealt with racism his whole life
In his memoir, Will Smith details how he had to deal with racism from a very early age, going all the way back to his childhood in Pennsylvania. "At Catholic school, no matter how well-spoken or intelligent, I was still the black kid," wrote Smith, adding, "This racial dynamic is something that has plagued me in various forms throughout my entire life."
On the podcast "Pod Save America," Smith claimed to have been called racial slurs at multiple points in his life, and even after he became a Hollywood star, he still had to deal with racism in the industry. However, he believes this is a problem of intelligence, not malice. "But at the core of it, I noticed a difference between ignorance and evil," Smith noted. "Ignorance can be educated. Evil is a much more difficult problem."
In an interview with Oprah, Smith details how he personally has come to navigate this issue. "The elixir, for me, has been comedy. Comedy crosses all divides," emphasized Smith. "For me, throughout my career, the bigger the laugh, I realized, the less I was the Black dude ... It's a magical energy that connects people and, for a brief moment, at least, purifies the poisons."
His reputation took a hit at the Oscars
In 2022, Will Smith attended the Oscars as a best actor nominee for his performance in "King Richard." Famed comedian Chris Rock was hosting the ceremony, and at one point during the night, he made a joke in which he referred to Jada Pinkett Smith, Will's wife, as "G.I. Jane." This was an allusion to the fact that Jada had a shaved head, but it touched a nerve for Will, as Jada has alopecia, a disorder that makes her hair fall out.
Enraged by what he took as a tasteless joke from Rock, Smith walked onto the stage and slapped Chris Rock. Many onlookers, including Jada, thought this was a joke, but it was, in fact, all too real. Actions come with consequences, and while Smith was allowed to keep the Academy Award for best actor he won that night, he was banned from attending the Oscars for the next 10 years, and was met with intense public backlash.
In an interview with Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show," Smith explained how his anger got the better of him that night. "It was a lot of things, it was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, all of that just bubbled up in that moment," confessed Smith. "I was going through something that night. Not that that justifies my behavior at all ... I guess the thing that was most painful for me is, I took my hard and made it hard for other people."
His marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith continues to haunt headlines
Ever since their marriage in 1997, headlines about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's rocky relationship have plagued the couple. In 2013, Pinkett was forced to address allegations that she had cheated on Will or that they were in an open marriage, a legacy that continued all the way into 2020 after singer August Alsina claimed to have had a relationship with her.
In an effort to finally put all the rumors to rest, Will and Jada went on "Red Table Talk" in 2020 to discuss their marriage. Jada explained that her relationship with Alsina took place during a time when she and Will were separated. "You and I were going through a very difficult time," she said to Smith, who jokingly replied, "I was done with your a**." During this discussion, audiences were given the impression that the couple had since reconciled, but in early October 2023, Jada appeared in an NBC News primetime special to drop a huge bombshell: The couple has actually been separated since 2016.
While the couple has been separated for over seven years now, they're not legally divorced, which she explained in the special. "I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce," stated Jada. "I just haven't been able to break that promise." She also addressed the whole cheating controversy once again, stating that while she recognizes that Will was "humiliated" in the headlines, she was never unfaithful to him.