Will Smith Says He Had A Brief Fantasy Of Murdering His Dad To 'Avenge' Abuse Of Mom

Reporter, HuffPost
New details from Will Smith’s upcoming memoir are shedding light on a horrific childhood experience that caused the actor to contemplate murdering his own father.
In September, GQ did a profile of the 53-year-old “King Richard” star that touched on a moment of violence Smith recounts in his book “Will” (due out Tuesday). According to the magazine, Smith writes about witnessing his father punch his mother on the side of the head. Smith, who was 9 years old at the time, was shocked by the violence and froze, and his failure to intervene on his mom’s behalf resulted in the actor feeling like a coward for most of his life, GQ said of the recollections in the book. The magazine then emphasized how Smith said this had affected him and had cast his career accomplishments as retribution or “a subtle string of apologies” to his mother for his inaction that day.
Now, in new and fuller excerpts from “Will” that were recently published by People and ET Canada, more detail are given about Smith’s experience with his father, who died in 2016, and its effect on him.
In the excerpts, Smith writes that his dad hit his mother “so hard that she collapsed” and that he “saw her spit blood.”
He also writes that, despite maintaining a close relationship with his father, when his dad got cancer decades later and Smith cared for him, the actor felt his simmering childhood anger begin to bubble.
“One night, as I delicately wheeled [my father] from his bedroom toward the bathroom, a darkness arose within me,” Smith writes. “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.”
He continues: “I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it.”
“I’m Will Smith. No one would ever believe I killed my father on purpose. I’m one of the best actors in the world. My 911 call would be Academy Award level.”
Smith also writes that this impulse was fleeting.
“As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom,” he writes.
Smith is also open about the complicated relationship he had with his father in the recently published excerpts, and he describes him as “violent” but “also at every game, play, and recital.”
“He was an alcoholic, but he was sober at every premiere of every one of my movies,” Smith wrote.
Smith ultimately characterizes his dad as “one of the greatest blessings of my life, and also one of my greatest sources of pain.”
Reporter, HuffPost

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