The story of this Hollywood legend is far darker and more complicated than most realize. Did you know, for instance, that he once entertained thoughts of killing his own father?
Or that a “core trauma” from when he was just nine left a wound he has spent his entire life trying to heal?
Called him ”Daddio”
Hollywood glitz and glamour often mask a far more complicated story than fans realize. Beneath the red carpets, the blockbuster premieres, and the larger-than-life persona lies a childhood marked by fear, discipline, and a wound that would shape a lifetime.
This star’s early years were spent in the shadow of a father who was both revered and terrifying. Children didn’t call him “dad” or “father”— he was “Daddio.”
Brilliant, exacting, and unyielding, he demanded perfection in every small task: cleaning, running errands, even scrubbing floors became tests of obedience and discipline.
“Ninety-nine percent is the same as zero,” he would often say.
The man’s military-like mindset (the father worked as a school board administrator), permeated the household.
Life, he insisted, was either success or failure, victory or disaster.
“In Daddio’s mind, everything was life or death,” the actor recalls.
Violent alcoholic
Missteps weren’t merely corrected, they were punished, sometimes with blows. And yet, this same man attended every recital, every game, every performance.
”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,” the actor shared in his memoirs.
By age nine, a moment occurred that would forever mark the actor’s life.
One day, he witnessed his father strike his mother with enough force that she collapsed, spitting blood. The horror of that moment imprinted itself indelibly on his young mind.
“It’s like, what kind of kid stands there and lets somebody hit their mother and they don’t do anything, you know?” he later reflected. That incident became the core trauma of his childhood, shaping the persona he would project to the world: the brave, confident, unstoppable figure that millions came to adore.
”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.”
Contemplated killing his dad
For years, the actor carried the paradox of love and fear, admiration and terror, in equal measure. His father was his hero and his tormentor, a complex force of discipline, love, and cruelty.
“What was really difficult for me is my father’s my hero,” he said.
“My father’s the greatest person I’ve ever known, and that dichotomy breaks a young mind, you know? It’s like, how do you love somebody who did that? That really just became the central core of the wound that I was overcoming throughout my childhood, and then ultimately throughout my life.”
Decades later, even as the actor achieved fame and fortune, the past lingered. His parents separated when he was a teen but he remained close with them. He admits that while caring for his father during his final battle with cancer, he briefly entertained a shocking thought: that he could kill him and escape consequence.
“I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it,” he wrote. But as the years of anger and resentment passed, he chose care over vengeance, wheeling his father safely to the bathroom and confronting the complexity of forgiveness.
Reconciliation
That act of reconciliation in 2016 marked a turning point.
“My father dying started a new phase of my life,” he reflected, a man finally able to forgive his father—and himself—for the shadows of the past.
When he became a father himself, the lessons of his childhood weighed heavily on him. From the moment his first child arrived, he was consumed with fear and responsibility.
“That first day home left me experiencing stark terror as my son lay in a bassinet and my first wife slept. I freaked out as I realized I was entirely responsible for Trey’s life.”
He was determined to parent differently – to teach through example, nurture through patience, and avoid the harshness that had defined his own upbringing.
He discovered that parenting wasn’t about control or perfection but about cultivating growth.
“The concept was that if God already designed the seed as it should be, the gardener’s job was to create an environment where it could fulfill itself,” he explained.
His father ‘helped’ him win
He applied this philosophy to all three of his children, Willow, Jaden, and Trey, learning to guide without imposing, to love without demanding, and to nurture without fear.
And who is this Hollywood icon who has transformed pain into purpose, who has become both a superstar and a devoted father?
The answer is Will Smith, the “Men in Black” star and global box-office powerhouse, whose films have grossed over $10 billion worldwide. And you can clearly see how his childhood experiences and his father’s influence impacted his journey in Hollywood.
Smith would later win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Richard Williams in King Richard, portraying the tough, determined father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams.
Williams raised his daughters in a challenging Compton neighborhood, guiding them to break barriers in a sport where few Black athletes had succeeded.
Reflecting on the role, Smith noted striking parallels between his father and Richard Williams.
“There was a certain amount of brutality that Richard Williams and my father suffered that created a certain hardness and endurance,” he said.
“And then sort of blending that with my own parenting style. It’s my job to nurture and water them into becoming what they already are, to grow into what they are, versus being an image of something that I need for me to feel good about my parenting.”
Banned from the Oscars
In recent years, Will Smith has focused heavily on self-reflection. Following the infamous Oscars slap, he’s uncovered new insights about himself.
”After the Oscars I shut it down for a minute and really went into the internal work and just taking a big, strong, honest look at myself,” he told BBC in 2025.
The incident at the 2022 Oscars saw Chris Rock make a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, which is due to alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss.
In response, Smith walked onto the stage, slapped Rock, and told him not to mention his wife’s name. The moment quickly went viral, with video clips being watched by millions around the world.
Will Smith will not be allowed to attend the Oscars for the next 10 years. Will stepped down from the Academy shortly after the incident, calling his behavior “shocking, painful, and inexcusable.” The 57-year-old told 1Xtra that the aftermath also gave him space to look inward.
“It was like a manhole cover had been hiding parts of myself, and suddenly it was lifted,” he says.
At 57, the Oscar-winning actor shows no signs of slowing down, despite recent controversies. Last year, he released his first full-length album in two decades, Based on a True Story. While he’s no longer Hollywood’s highest-paid star — a title he held back in 2008 — his net worth in 2026 is estimated at an impressive $350 million.
And in January 2026, he returned to screens with the National Geographic documentary series Pole to Pole, streaming on Disney+, taking viewers on a breathtaking journey across some of Earth’s most extreme landscapes.
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