Will Smith revealed he once considered killing his father as a way to ‘avenge’ his mother.
The Philadelphia-born actor, 53, reflected on his complicated relationship with his father in an excerpt of his forthcoming memoir Will released by People on Wednesday, describing the late Willard C. Smith Sr. as a ‘violent’ alcoholic who was dedicated to his family.
In the except, Will remembers a time when he contemplated pushing his drunken father down the stairs as retribution for the ‘decades of pain, anger, and resentment’ Will Sr. caused.
Greek drama: Will Smith revealed he once considered killing his father as a way to ‘avenge’ his mother. They’re seen in 2015 together, not long before Smith Sr.’s 2016 death from cancer
Pages: The Philadelphia-born actor, 53, reflected on his complicated relationship with his father in an excerpt of his forthcoming memoir Will released by People on Wednesday
‘My father was violent, but he was also at every game, play, and recital,’ Smith wrote.
‘He was an alcoholic, but he was sober at every premiere of every one of my movies. He listened to every record. He visited every studio. The same intense perfectionism that terrorized his family put food on the table every night of my life.’
Recalling an early memory of violence, Will went on: ‘When I was nine 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.
‘That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am.’
Smith said that the trauma of that incident resonated through the rest of his life..
‘Within everything that I have done since then — the awards and accolades, the spotlights and attention, the characters and the laughs — there has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day,’ he wrote. ‘For failing her in the moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward.’
He described his bombastic public persona as a façade, writing: ‘What you have come to understand as “Will Smith,” the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction – a carefully crafted and honed character – designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.’
Darkness: In the except, Will remembers a time when he contemplated pushing his drunken father down the stairs as retribution for the ‘decades of pain, anger, and resentment’ Will Sr. caused. Above, the father and son are seen in a vintage shot with Will’s eldest Trey
Traumatic: Recalling an early memory of violence, Will said, ‘When I was nine 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. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am’
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But Will remembered one time time he was almost overtaken by a ‘darkness,’ writing: ‘One night, as I delicately wheeled him from his bedroom toward the bathroom, a darkness arose within me.’
‘The path between the two rooms goes past the top of the stairs. As a child I’d always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother. That when I was big enough, when I was strong enough, when I was no longer a coward, I would slay him.’
‘I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it,’ he wrote.
‘As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom.’
Will Sr. would die of cancer at age 76 in 2016.
Reflecting on the loss and how he made peace, the actor wrote: ‘There is nothing that you can receive from the material world that will create inner peace or fulfillment.’
‘In the end, it will not matter one single bit how well [people] loved you — you will only gain “the Smile” based on how well you loved them.’
Smith went on to raise three of his own children: sons Trey, 28, and Jaden, 23, as well as daughter Willow, 21.
Will Smith’s memoir Will comes out November 9th.
