Suicide Squad and King Richard actor Will Smith claims in his upcoming memoir, Will, that he once contemplated murdering his father.
In an excerpt provided to People, Smith talks about his relationship with his father and characterizes him as an alcoholic. He even recalls a moment where his father violently attacks his mother.
Smith writes in the book, “My father was violent, but he was also at every game, play, and recital. 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,” he added.
In recalling a moment that he claims defined his life, Smith writes, “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.”
He went on to explain how that moment defined 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. For failing her in the moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward.”
“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,” he writes.
Decades after this incident, Smith then detailed a time in his life when he contemplated murdering his father.
He wrote, “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.”
Clearly he did not commit the murder. Instead he detailed, “I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it. As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom.”
The excerpt concludes with Smith writing, “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.”
In promotion for his new YouTube show, Smith also detailed that he contemplated committing suicide.
He says in the video, “That was the only time in my life that I ever considered suicide.”
Smith also reiterated what he says in the memoir about his identity and life as Will Smith being a construction.
He states, “What you’ve come to understand as Will Smith, the alien annihilating MC, 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,” he claims.
The YouTube series titled “Will Smith: The Best Shape Of My Life” airs its first two episodes on November 8th. The final four episodes will air daily with the sixth and final episode dropping on his YouTube channel on November 12th.
His memoir, Will, will be available to purchase on November 9th.
What do you make of Smith’s claim that he once seriously contemplated murdering his father?