the biography of will smith

Will Smith Biography

actor; musician Born: 9/25/1968 Birthplace: Philadelphia

Smith got his start in show business as half of the Grammy Award-winning rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. An auspicious acting debut in television's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96) led to an equally successful movie career, including leading roles in the blockbusters Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997) and Men in Black II (2002), Enemy of the State (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), Ali (2001), and Hitch (2005). He got critical acclaim for his role in 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness in which his young son costarred. He released his first solo album Big Willie Style in 1997. He is married to actress Jada Pinkett-Smith .

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Will Smith , Mark Manson

418 pages, Hardcover

First published November 9, 2021

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The Fresh Prince of Belles-Lettres? Will Smith Has a Memoir.

By Alexandra Jacobs

• Published Nov. 9, 2021 Updated Nov. 30, 2021
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Fourth of July weekend, 1996. America has gasped en masse watching aliens detonate the White House in the movie “Independence Day” and, at 3 a.m. in Los Angeles, the telephone of its young star, Will Smith, jangles him awake.

It’s his domineering father, calling from Philadelphia to crow about the boffo box office receipts. “Remember I told you ! There’s no such thing as luck,” this man he calls Daddio reminds him several times.

Smith is baffled. Then Daddio, piling on affectionate profanity, concedes he was wrong about being the creator of your own destiny, about success being the result of preparation meeting opportunity and all that. His son, a rapper-turned-sitcom actor and now overnight matinee idol, is just the luckiest man he has ever met.

Titled simply “Will,” with all of that word’s felicitous double entendres of iron and resolve, Smith’s autobiography is indeed a fairy tale of dazzling good fortune — albeit one told by a narrator who admits by the second chapter that he is unreliable, a lifelong embellisher for whom “the border between fantasy and reality has always been thin and transparent.”

The book is also intermittently a call to self-actualization: Written with Mark Manson, a mega-selling personal-growth author himself prone to profanity, it’s sprinkled with homilies like “Living is the journey from not knowing to knowing. From not understanding to understanding. From confusion to clarity.” A Fresh Prince of all media, Smith has so many “angels” to thank along this “journey,” he directs readers to his Instagram account rather than kill more trees with lengthy acknowledgments.

It’s more like a wild ride than a journey, however, one whose most valuable insights are to be gleaned not on Instagram but in a pre-web world of suburban basements, cassette decks, network TV shows, fax machines, party lines and playing outside.

During Smith’s childhood in the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia, Daddio was a hard-drinking self-employed refrigeration engineer of militaristic discipline but erratic temper. He once struck Smith’s mother, known as Mom-Mom — an office and then school administrator of her own considerable mettle — so hard she spit blood. Witnessing this at age 9, Will determined heartbreakingly that he was a “coward” for not intervening — a self-characterization that echoes throughout this story and, he theorizes later, drove him to compensate by powering through fear. (For his 50th birthday, he bungee-jumped backward out of a helicopter above the Grand Canyon .)

Smith developed a work ethic bagging ice and laying bricks for the family business, but he felt safest when Daddio, a frustrated photography buff, was making home movies. The camera had no sound and so the little boy learned to ham it up, forever bursting into frame. “I invented photobombing,” he writes.

Years later, when his old man is confined to a wheelchair with heart disease, Smith confesses he contemplated pushing him down a staircase, like Richard Widmark’s character in the film noir “Kiss of Death”: “My 911 call would be Academy Award level.” It’s a rare flash of darkness from a guy whose psychological adaptations were affability and popularity, the desire to make sure everyone around him was having a good time.

In the rap world where he made his name, those traits weren’t always appreciated, and Smith’s reputation for being “soft” and “bubble gum” still rankles. He encountered his share of violence outside as well as inside the home, solidly middle-class though it was. In one early meeting with an annoyed television executive, he and his entourage were so sure a brawl was about to break out that his manager lifted a five-pound snow globe in anticipatory self-defense.

He tells of learning to appeal to white sensibilities at the Catholic school he attended, until his parents withdrew him after a racist incident at the football awards banquet; and of getting into what Mom-Mom calls “hippity-hopping” at Overbrook High, which was predominantly Black. Smith’s collaboration with Jeffrey Allen Townes, a.k.a. DJ Jazzy Jeff, a nerdy kid from another neighborhood who survived non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was so successful, with a hit song before graduation, that Smith decided against college. “We were seeking our sound,” he writes of their intense early partnership, “but we found ourselves.”

Scenes from tours with Public Enemy and 2 Live Crew are amazing 3-D postcards from the rosy dawn of the genre, including friction with local law enforcement in the South, onstage fellatio and the nightly “hanging” of a stuntman in a Ku Klux Klan hood. Smith squandered his earnings and neglected to pay taxes, only to get a lucky second break from Quincy Jones, his Obi Wan Kenobi, to star with Townes on a custom-built sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Though Smith claims he didn’t read a book cover to cover until he was “well into” his 20s, he has the literary aplomb (thanks partly to Mom-Mom) and the trust in his manager’s discernment to turn down $10 million for an early project called “8 Heads in a Duffel Bag,” choosing instead Paul Poitier in John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” for $300,000. Eventually he gorges on magical realism and mythology, falling in love with Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”

Smith’s own hero’s quest, at first, is for more money (“sucking all the cash out of the weekend”), more fame, more global records, a house as palatial as the one he saw growing up on “Dallas” — no matter that his second wife, the formidable Jada Pinkett, doesn’t want to arrive at breakfast on a stallion the way Sue Ellen Ewing did.

As the book progresses, and Smith’s celebrity becomes more stratospheric and snow globe-like, the air grows thinner; he starts to gasp for breath and turns inward. “Am I an addict?” he wonders during a period of introspection that includes meditation, a trip to Trinidad, the therapeutic identification of a persona called Uncle Fluffy and over a dozen ayahuasca ceremonies. He’s not hooked on drugs, or drink, or “sex like some ghetto hyena.” Smith is a workaholic, and a win-aholic, those most virtuous and therefore invisible of vices.

Writing a book that will probably blow up the charts, and publicizing it, may not be good for his recovery. But one day at a time.

Alexandra Jacobs is a book critic for The Times and the author of “Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch.” Follow her on Twitter: @AlexandraJacobs .

Will By Will Smith with Mark Manson Illustrated. 418 pages. Penguin Press. $30.

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Will Smith: now Hollywood royalty, the star’s rise has been far from painless

From Fresh Prince to King Richard, personal upsets have so far failed to derail his childhood goal to be the world’s biggest film star

There’s a seemingly offhand quality which is central to the appeal of Will Smith: an innate magnetism and loose-limbed, casual coolness. But the career path from teenage rap artist to TV actor to superstar status was anything but effortless; it was the result of a self-described “psychotic” work ethic and meticulous, perhaps even obsessive, planning.

For a while, at least, he was one of the most bankable film actors on the planet – a planet that he saved on a regular basis in summer blockbusters. But while that kind of success rate is hard to sustain, Smith has shown himself to be extremely adaptable compared to his contemporaries. From film actor/musician, he has evolved into a multimedia phenomenon. He has adopted a very marketable openness and accessibility, and embraced personal failures as teachable moments.

Having already rebranded himself as a social media superstar, he cruised through lockdown with a hugely successful streamed show in which he sprawled in sweatpants while riffing with celebrity buddies on Zoom.

Now he’s back in more traditional movie star territory, with the double-pronged assault of a candid new memoir and one of his finest and most awards-friendly performances in years, as Richard Williams, father and coach of Venus and Serena, in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard . The Hollywood Reporter described him as “outstanding”, and Vanity Fair lauded “a sterling reminder of Smith’s singular charge, seizing upon a mighty challenge with thrilling recommitment”.

The book, meanwhile, is entitled Will and is sold as “an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph” which digs into the life events which fine-tuned Smith’s weapons-grade charisma and steely determination.

He was born Willard Carroll Smith Jr in 1968 in Philadelphia. Nicknamed “Prince” at school for his formidable charm, he tasted success early on. As the Fresh Prince, alongside his childhood friend Jeffrey “DJ Jazzy Jeff” Townes, he had released a single before he had finished high school; they were the first hip-hop artists to win a Grammy , and he was a millionaire by the age of 18.

Smith was raised a Baptist: the PG-rated rhymes derided in some quarters of the rap community were a result of an intervention by his God-fearing granny. Rather than profanity, Smith learned to harness quick-witted humour, a skill he deftly transferred from music to acting. It was not all plain sailing. Smith’s money management skills left something to be desired, and the IRS came knocking with a substantial bill and a repossession order for most of his liquid assets.

Bruised by the experience, Smith left Philadelphia for LA and, in 1990, signed as the lead in the NBC television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , having been strong-armed by Quincy Jones into an off-the-cuff audition at Jones’s house.

Thanks to the IRS, Smith’s move to Hollywood was not liberally bankrolled, but he did arrive with a plan: to be the biggest movie star in the world. To this end, he studied the then 10 most successful films of all time to identify patterns. He scrutinised Tom Cruise’s promotional techniques and sought advice from heavyweights like Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Think of yourself as a politician running for Biggest Movie Star in the World,” was Arnie’s response.)

Smith’s elevation to movie star status was so swift and decisive, it’s easy to forget that he straddled two hitherto significant barriers. First, he overcame the film industry’s resistance to the idea of a television personality making the leap to the big screen – the division between the two was considerably less permeable then than now. Second, and more significantly, was the issue of race. In a movie landscape which harboured no shortage of unconscious bias and a fair amount of outright systemic racism, Smith was the first black star to be routinely cast in roles not specifically written as black.

A case in point was the 1995 buddy cop movie Bad Boys , which had been intended for Saturday Night Live comedians Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey. Director Michael Bay, who was vocal in his dissatisfaction with the screenplay, cast Smith and Martin Lawrence in the two central roles and encouraged them to improvise rather than to stick to the lines on the page.

Bay was also instrumental in the rebranding of Smith as a big-screen star, encouraging him to take his shirt off for one shot. Smith dismissed the idea as corny, but Bay persisted and they compromised with an open shirt. Bay later recalled “I was like… ‘Look at this! You look like a movie star!’ And he’s like: ‘Shit, I do!’”

It was a revealing moment in more ways than one for Smith, who later said: “That was where I learned how important single images are. That single image took me from a comedic television actor to a potential movie star. The scripts that I started to get offered changed dramatically.”

The ripped physique certainly didn’t hurt Smith’s prospects but there has never been a shortage of sculpted torsos in Hollywood. What set Smith apart was an inherent likability. Tommy Lee Jones, Smith’s co-star in Men in Black , said: “Will is more generous than anyone, and he spreads joy. He walks into a studio, walks on to a set, and makes certain that everybody’s happy. He can’t help himself.” That’s high praise from the famously curmudgeonly Jones, who took a visceral dislike of another co-star, Jim Carrey, because he “couldn’t sanction [Carrey’s] buffoonery”.

Smith liked to attribute his drive to getting two-timed by a girlfriend when he was 16. “In my mind, she cheated because I wasn’t good enough. I remember making the decision that I will never not be good enough again.”

It’s a typical Will Smith statement, self-deprecating but with a wink of boastfulness tagged on for good measure. But, according to his new book, the need to please comes from a darker episode. At 12, he witnessed his father assault his mother and was paralysed by fear into inaction. Smith’s urge to entertain was, he suggests, partly a response to what he perceived as his own cowardice, a distraction technique to avoid further conflict. “Comedy defuses all negativity,” he writes.

Wherever the motivation lay, it worked. Smith holds several box-office records, including that of the most consecutive $100m-plus hits at the US: eight, starting with Men in Black 2 and ending with Hancock . He has been Oscar-nominated twice, for lead actor performances in Ali and The Pursuit Of Happyness ; another nod is on the cards, and early buzz suggests that the third time might be the charm.

Perhaps more revealing than the career triumphs are his reactions to the inevitable bumps in the road. Smith, as the tone of his book suggests, is into personal growth and self-actualisation. And he has no qualms about being public about his journey. Talking to British GQ recently, director Michael Mann, who worked with him on Ali , said: “He’s got a lot of balls artistically, and as a man. He’s materially, wonderfully successful – and conscious of that – but he asks himself the most serious and profound questions that every single one of us encounters in our lives.”

Thus the critical drubbing of films like After Earth prompted candid reappraisals of his career and values; in his book, Smith further confronts the painful fallout from the film: his son Jaden, who co-starred and was targeted for particularly vitriolic criticism, considered applying for legal emancipation at the age of 15, a pointed no-confidence vote in his father’s guidance. A rocky patch in Smith’s marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith was explored in a well-meaning and only slightly cringey discussion on Pinkett Smith’s web series, Red Table Talk. And in May this year he posted a snapshot displaying a lockdown paunch, with the rueful claim that he was in the “worst shape of his life”.

It was a relatable moment, but, one suspects, a calculated one. After all, you can’t make a career of saving the planet if you don’t remind people you’re human once in a while.

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Jada Pinkett Smith

Actor Jada Pinkett Smith has starred in The Matrix and Madagascar movie franchises. She is married to actor Will Smith and is the mother of Jaden and Willow Smith.

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1971-present

Latest News: Jada Pinkett Smith’s New Memoir Worthy Is Now Out

Worthy by jada pinkett smith.

Quick Facts

Tv shows and early movies, rise to big-screen stardom: matrix and madagascar movies, red table talk, marriage to will smith and affair, hair loss from alopecia diagnosis, chris rock slap incident, worthy memoir, who is jada pinkett smith.

Actor Jada Pinkett Smith is best known for her roles in The Matrix sequels and the Madagascar animated film franchise. She first attracted attention after joining the Bill Cosby television series A Different World in 1991 and was launched to stardom with her role in the Eddie Murphy comedy The Nutty Professor. In addition to her movies and TV shows, Pinkett Smith previously co-hosted the talk show Red Table Talk and has spoken candidly about various aspects of her life, from her marriage with Will Smith to her struggles with alopecia. The actor was involved with an infamous moment during the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony, when her husband slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.

FULL NAME: Jada Koren Pinkett Smith BORN: September 18, 1971 BIRTHPLACE: Baltimore, Maryland SPOUSE: Will Smith (1997-present; separated) CHILDREN: Jaden , Willow , and Trey ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo

Jada Koren Pinkett was born on September 18, 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland. The daughter of contractor Robsol Pinkett Jr. and nurse Adrienne Banfield-Norris, she was named after Jada Rowland , her mother’s favorite soap opera star. Jada’s grandmother primarily raised her.

Pinkett attended the Baltimore School of the Arts as a teenager, majoring in dance and theater. One of her classmates and friends there was the late rap artist Tupac Shakur . He wrote poems about her, and she later had a cameo in his music video for “Strictly 4 My Niggaz.” Pinkett graduated high school in 1989 then spent a year at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Of her relationship with Tupac, Pinkett Smith later told reporters that she was a drug dealer when she met Shakur and that she resented the way the movie All Eyez on Me (2017) later “reimagined” their relationship: “It wasn’t just about, oh, you have this cute girl, and this cool guy, they must have been in this—nah, it wasn’t that at all. It was about survival, and it had always been about survival between us.”

Pinkett began her acting career with an appearance on sitcom True Colors in 1990. She appeared in guest roles on other television shows like Doogie Howser, M.D. and 21 Jump Street before earning her first recurring role on the NBC comedy A Different World , created by Bill Cosby as a spinoff of The Cosby Show . Portraying sassy college student Lena James, Pinkett joined the show during its fifth season in 1992 and remained on the series until its conclusion the following year. Series producer and director Debbie Allen wrote the part specifically for Pinkett , and Allen said the actor “walked in ready” after she was cast.

Her first movie role was portraying a young single mother named Ronnie in Menace II Society (1993). She was cast based upon a suggestion by Tupac, who was originally slated to appear in the film but was fired from the project shortly after Pinkett was cast. She considered quitting the job as as result, but Tupac convinced her to keep the part, and she later said, “I probably wouldn’t have done it without his blessing.” She received critical acclaim for the performance, with film critic Roger Ebert describing her performance as “filled with life and conviction.”

Pinkett continued to earn positive reviews for her movie performances in 1994. She appeared in the action comedy A Low Down Dirty Shame alongside Keenen Ivory Wayan, a performance Stephen Holden of The New York Times called “as sassy and sizzling as a Salt -n- Pepa recording,” adding that “she walks away with the movie.” She also starred in a more dramatic leading role alongs ide Allen Payne in the erotic drama Jason ’s Lyric . Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle wrote that Pinkett had a “powerful screen presence” and said her scenes with Payne “seem like something out of Romeo and Juliet .”

Pinkett had additional featured roles in films like 1995’s Demon Knight and Set it Off the next year. Also in 1995, she began directing music videos, including “Keep On, Keepin’ On” by MC Lyte. She conceived the idea for the music video for Tupac’s hit song “California Love,” which features the rapper fighting an evil tribal chief in a desert set in the year 2095. The idea was inspired by the 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome , and Pinkett was originally slated to direct it, but she dropped out of the project, according to the book Tupac Shakur: The Life and Times of an American Icon .

In 1996, Pinkett portrayed Eddie Murphy ’s love interest in The Nutty Professor ; the comedy earned $274 million worldwide. She also appeared in Set It Off (1996), Scream 2 (1997), Return to Paradise (1998) , Woo (1998), and Spike Lee ’s highly controversial Bamboozled (2000), a satire of racial bias in the television industry. The following year, she joined her husband, Will Smith , in the biopic Ali , in which she played boxing great Muhammad Ali ’s first wife, Sonji. She was initially hesitate to appear in the movie because she feared her real-life marriage to Smith would be a distraction to viewers, saying it might “take people out of the movie.” She, nevertheless, auditioned and took the role at the insistence of director Michael Mann.

Pinkett Smith established arguably her most well-known role when she portrayed the human rebel Niobe in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions , directed by the Wachowskis and both released in 2003. Prior to her own role in the science-fiction action franchise, she urged her husband to take the lead role of Neo in the first film from 1999. Will turned it down, and the part ultimately went to Keanu Reeves . Pinkett Smith originally auditioned for the female lead of Trinity, which went to Carrie-Anne Moss, but the Wackowskis wrote the character of Niobe specifically for Pinkett Smith in the sequels. In addition to the movies, Pinkett Smith played a leading role in the popular 2003 video game from the franchise called Enter the Matrix .

Continuing to appear in commercially and critically successful films, Pinkett Smith had a role in Collateral (2004), starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx , and directed by Michael Mann. The next year, she voiced the character of Gloria the hippopotamus for Madagascar (2005), which went on to earn $532 million worldwide. Tom McGrath, one of the directors of the film, said Pinkett Smith had the “confidence and sweetness” they were seeking for the character. She went on to reprise the character in five Madagascar sequels.

She co-starred in the dramas Reign Over Me (2007), with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle, and The Women (2008) with Meg Ryan , Annette Bening , Eva Mendes , and Debra Messing. The Women was panned by critics and Pinkett Smith and her three co-stars were collectively nominated for Worst Actress by the Golden Raspberry Awards, better known as the Razzies.

Also in 2008, Pinkett Smith made her debut as a director and writer in the independent feature The Human Contract , about a successful but unhappy businessman who falls in love with a free-spirited stranger. She co-starred in the film, which also featured Jason Clarke, Paz Vega, and Idris Elba .

Returning to TV, she starred in and co-produced the TNT series Hawthorne , playing the chief nursing officer in a Richmond, Virginia hospital from 2009 to 2011. The role earned her an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.

Pinkett Smith’s next starred in the first season of Fox’s Batman television series Gotham in 2014, portraying Gotham City crime boss Fish Mooney. A fan of comic books, she called it “one of my favorite characters I’ve ever played.”

Following her lengthy absence from the big screen, Pinkett Smith returned for a supporting role in Magic Mike XXL (2015) and joined the ensemble cast of Bad Moms (2016). Continuing down the path of R-rated comedies, she featured prominently in the surprise hit Girls Trip (2017), with Queen Latifah , Tiffany Haddish , and Regina Hall.

In May 2018, Pinkett Smith—along with her daughter, Willow Smith , and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris—launched the talk show Red Table Talk on the Facebook Watch streaming service. The show sought to delve into issues that had affected her family, from differing generational viewpoints. “My mother is old school, Willow is new school, and I find myself right in the middle,” she said .

Red Table Talk proved to be a headline-grabber thanks to Pinkett Smith’s willingness to share all kinds of personal information, including her admissions that she had undergone multiple vaginal rejuvenation treatments and that she was once addicted to using sex toys . The series, which won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Informative, ran five seasons through April 2023, when it was cancelled by Facebook Watch.

Jada Pinkett and Will Smith were married on New Year’s Eve in 1997. The two met on the set of Smith’s television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , where Pinkett Smith auditioned for the role of one of Smith’s girlfriends. She lost the part to actor Nia Long because she was considered too short.

Their son, Jaden Smith , was born in 1998. Their daughter, Willow , was born in October 2000. Pinkett Smith also became stepmother to Trey, a son from his Smith’s previous marriage to Sheree Zampino.

In July 2020, Pinkett Smith admitted to previously having a romantic relationship with singer August Alsina while she and Smith were on a break. Smith confirmed in 2021 that he and Pinkett Smith have an open marriage. “Jada never believed in conventional marriage,” he told GQ . “We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison.”

In October 2023, Pinkett Smith sat for an interview with NBC’s Hoda Kotb to discuss the star’s new memoir Worthy , which includes the groundbreaking news that Jada and Will have lived separately for years. They separated in 2016 but continue to make public appearances together. Jada said many things contributed to the split. “By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she said. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.” She considered getting a divorce but hasn’t gone through with it. Kotb said on the Today show that the couple has no plans to do so. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” Jada said. “We will work through whatever. I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

In 2018, Pinkett publicly revealed that she has alopecia areata, a condition that results in the loss of hair in some or all parts of the body. “I was in the shower one day and had just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, am I going bald?’” she said on her show Red Table Talk , adding “It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking in fear. That’s why I cut my hair and why I continue to cut it.”

Pinkett Smith has said stress might be a factor in her illness. She began shaving her head as a result of her alopecia, saying in 2021 : “Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something. Me and this alopecia are going to be friends… period.”

In 2022, Pinkett Smith was involved with what has been described as one of the most infamous moments in pop culture history when her husband, Will Smith , slapped comedian Chris Rock during the 94 th Academy Awards ceremony. Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature when he saw the couple in the audience and ad-libbed a joke about Pinkett Smith starring in a sequel G.I. Jane , due to her shaved head.

Pinkett Smith was visibly annoyed by the joke. Despite initially laughing at the joke himself, Smith walked onto the stage, slapped Rock across the face, then sat back down, and yelled at Rock from his seat. Rock appeared stunned, jokingly calling it the “greatest night in the history of television,” before continuing his presentation. The moment, which became known as “The Slap” and “Slapgate,” largely overshadowed the rest of the ceremony, during which Smith later won Best Actor for his role in King Richard .

Smith later resigned from the Academy, which condemned his actions and banned him from future ceremonies for 10 years. Smith and Rock were both praised and defended from varying parties, with some criticizing Rock for mocking Pinkett Smith’s medical condition. Pinkett Smith later said of the incident : “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have the opportunity to heal, talk this out, and reconcile... The state of the world today? We need ’em both.”

In her memoir, Pinkett Smith describes initially thinking the slap was a skit, and she told The New York Times she was surprised to hear Will call her his wife. “Even though we hadn’t been calling each other husband and wife in a long time, I said, ‘I’m his wife now. We in this.’ That’s just who I am,” she said. “That’s the gift I have to offer, like, ‘Hey, I’m riding with you.’”

Pinkett Smith is reported to have a net worth of $50 million . This is the result of her work as an actor, producer, director, author, and businesswoman, as well as her marriage to Will Smith, who has been one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors of the last two decades, according to Celebrity Net Worth .

Pinkett Smith released Worthy , her “no holds barred” recounting of her life on October 17, 2023. The actor gave some insight to her memoir’s name prior to its release in an Instagram post , writing, “My hope is that through the exploration of my own tumultuous situations to the rediscovery of deep love, that we are all reminded that no matter where we may be on our journey, we are all...Worthy.”

Less than a week before the book release, Pinkett Smith gave readers a sneak preview of one of the book’s most titillating topics: her relationship with Will Smith. She reveals in the book for the first time that she and Will have been separated since 2016.

Pinkett Smith also opens up about her depression and how she considered suicide, particularly after her 40 th birthday. “I’d begun to think about how to have a fatal accident that wouldn’t look intentional—for the sake of my kids,” she writes in the book . Instead, she heard about someone’s experience with the psychedelic drug ayahuasca and found it helped her, too. “It gave me a new intimate relationship with myself that I had never had before,” Pinkett Smith told People . “The suicidal thoughts completely went away.”

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or self-harming behaviors, call or text 988 to get help from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline .

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy . He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

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• Born June 8 , 1971 · Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK
• Will Smith was born in 1971. He was brought up in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Beginning as a stand-up comedian he won Time Out's Comedy award for 2004 and Chortle's Best headliner for 2005. For several seasons he has also been a popular regular at the Edinburgh Fringe and in 2007 supported Ricky Gervais on his Fame tour. As a writer he has contributed to the satirical political sitcom 'The Thick of It', in which he also acts and the American TV satire 'Veep'. - IMDb Mini Biography By: don @ minifie-1
• Relatives Olly Smith (Sibling)
• His teenage devotion to the prog-rock band Marillion in the 1980s inspired his 2005 tour "Misplaced Childhood" (named after their 1985 number-one album).
• He is the brother of broadcaster and wine expert Olly Smith .
• He presented Marillion with the "UK Band of the Year" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards in London.
• His favourite albums are "Clutching at Straws" by Marillion , "Into The Great Wide Open" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Lucky Town" by Bruce Springsteen , "The Unforgettable Fire" by U2 and "Bringing It All Back Home" by Bob Dylan .

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MIT Black History

Will smith, 1986.

Will Smith in science class at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, PA, 1986.

Willard “Will” Carroll Smith, Jr.  is an American actor, producer, rapper and songwriter. He graduated with the class of 1986 from Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, PA. Smith's break-out role in the late-1980s hit television show  The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air  led to a successful career in Hollywood. 

Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer...Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend [MIT]; he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college." IMDb  [Internet Movie Database]

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Will Smith Biography

Will Smith, an immensely popular American actor, began his career as a rap artist before making a successful transition into the world of movies. With a string of blockbuster films and numerous awards to his name, including an Academy Award and four Grammy Awards, Smith has proven himself to be a versatile and talented performer. From his debut in “Six Degrees of Separation” to his iconic role in the “Men in Black” series, Smith’s power-packed performances have captivated audiences worldwide. His ability to effortlessly portray both emotional and action-packed roles has earned him praise from directors and fans alike.

Quick Facts

• Nick Name: The Fresh Prince
• Also Known As: Willard Carroll Smith II
• Age: 55 Years, 55 Year Old Males
• Spouse/Ex-: Jada Pinkett Smith (m. 1997), Sheree Zampino (m. 1992–1995)
• Father: Willard Christopher Smith Sr.
• Mother: Caroline Bright
• Siblings: Ellen Smith, Harry Smith, Pam Smith
• Children: Jaden Smith, Trey Smith, Willow Smith
• Born Country: United States
• Quotes By Will Smith
• Height: 6’2″ (188 cm), 6’2″ Males
• U.S. State: Pennsylvania, African-American From Pennsylvania
• Personality: ENFP
• City: Philadelphia
• Founder/Co-Founder: Treyball Development Inc., Overbrook Entertainment, New Village Leadership Academy
• Humanitarian Work: Established the ‘New Village Leadership Academy’ elementary school

Childhood & Early Life

Willard Christopher Smith, Jr. was born on September 25, 1968, in Pennsylvania. His parents were Willard C. Smith, Sr., the proprietor of a refrigeration company, and Caroline, a member of the ‘School Board of Philadelphia’. He grew up in the neighbourhood of Wynnefield with his younger siblings Harry and Ellen, as well as an older sister Pamela. Smith had a Baptist upbringing at home but received his elementary education from a Catholic institution named ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’. After his parents separated, he attended ‘Overbrook High School’ in Philadelphia. Instead of attending college, he decided to pursue a career in music.

Smith met record producer and musician Jeffrey Townes, also known as DJ Jazzy Jeff, at a party, and the two formed a group with another friend called Ready Rock C. They became known as ‘DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’ and gained popularity with songs like ‘Summertime’ and ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand’. In 1988-89, Smith faced trouble with the ‘Internal Revenue Service’ due to unpaid taxes, which almost led to bankruptcy. However, he was hired for the sitcom ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ in 1990, which brought him recognition as an actor.

Smith made his debut in feature films in 1993 with the movie ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. He gained further success with movies like ‘Bad Boys’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘Men in Black’, and ‘Enemy of the State’. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in ‘Ali’. In the following years, he starred in movies like ‘I, Robot’, ‘Hitch’, ‘Pursuit of Happyness’, and ‘I Am Legend’. More recent works include ‘Focus’, ‘Concussion’, ‘Bad Boys For Life’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Suicide Squad’, and ‘King Richard’.

Major Works

Smith is known for his roles in the ‘Men in Black’ franchise and his performance in ‘Pursuit of Happyness’, which earned him critical acclaim and award nominations.

Personal Life & Legacy

Smith was first married to actress Sheree Elizabeth Zampino, with whom he has a son named Trey. They divorced after three years. He then married actress Jada Koren Pinkett, and they have two children together, Jaden and Willow. Smith has been involved in philanthropy, donating to various organizations and establishing an elementary school called ‘New Village Leadership Academy’ with his wife.

Smith was originally offered the role of ‘Neo’ in ‘The Matrix’ but turned it down, and the role went to Keanu Reeves.

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Will Hardcover – November 9, 2021

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• Print length 432 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Press
• Publication date November 9, 2021
• Dimensions 6.37 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches
• ISBN-10 1984877925
• ISBN-13 978-1984877925
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About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved..

I've always thought of myself as a coward. Most of my memories of my childhood involve me being afraid in some way-afraid of other kids, afraid of being hurt or embarrassed, afraid of being seen as weak.

But mostly, I was afraid of my father.

When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of her 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 today.

Within everything that I have done since then--the awards and accolades, the spotlights and the 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 that 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.

My father was my hero.

His name was Willard Carroll Smith, but we all called him "Daddio."

Daddio was born and raised in the rough and rugged streets of North Philadelphia in the 1940s. Daddio's father, my grandfather, owned a small fish market. He had to work from 4:00 a.m. until late at night every day. My grandmother was a nurse and often worked the night shift at the hospital. As a result, Daddio spent much of his childhood alone and unsupervised. The North Philly streets had a way of hardening you. You either crystallized into a mean motherfucker, or the hood broke you. Daddio was smoking cigarettes by eleven and drinking by the age of fourteen. My father developed a defiant and aggressive attitude that would continue all his life.

When he was fourteen, my grandparents, fearing where his life was headed, scraped together what money they could and sent him to an agricultural boarding school in the Pennsylvania countryside where kids learned farming techniques and basic handyman work. It was a strict and traditional place, and by sending him there they hoped to introduce some much-needed structure and discipline into his life.

But nobody was going to tell my father what to do. Other than working on some of the tractor engines, he couldn't be bothered with what he described as "that hillbilly bullshit." He would skip classes; he smoked cigarettes and kept on drinking.

At age sixteen, Daddio was done with this school and ready to go home. He decided to get himself kicked out. He started disrupting classes, ignoring all the rules, and antagonizing anyone in a position of authority. But when the administrators tried to send him home, my grandparents refused to take him back. "We paid for the full year," they said. "You're getting paid to deal with him, so deal with him." Daddio was stuck.

But Daddio was a hustler--he was going to find his way out: On his seventeenth birthday, he snuck off campus, walked half a dozen miles to the nearest recruiting office, and enlisted in the United States Air Force. This was classic Daddio--he was so hell-bent on defying authority and rebelling against both his parents and the school that he jumped out of the frying pan of an agricultural boarding school and directly into the fire of the United States military. He ended up in the exact structure and discipline my grandparents had desperately hoped to instill in him.

But as it turned out, Daddio loved it. It was in the military that he discovered the transformative power of order and discipline, two values that he came to worship as the guardrails protecting him from the worst parts of himself. Wake up at 4:00 a.m., train all morning, work all day, study all night--he found his lane. He discovered that he could outlast anybody, and he began to take pride in that. It was another aspect of his defiant attitude. Nobody could force him to wake up with a bugle horn because he already was up.

With his passionate work ethic, boundless energy, and undeniable intelligence, he should have quickly risen through the ranks. But there were two issues.

First, he had a brutal temper, and superior officer or not, if you were wrong, he wasn't doing it. Second, his drinking. Let me tell you, my father was one of the smartest people I've ever known, but when he was angry, or drunk, he became an idiot. He would break his own rules, subvert his own objectives, destroy his own things.

After about two years in the military, this self-destructive streak peeked through the veil of order and ended his service career.

One night, he and the guys from his platoon were gambling. (Daddio was sweet with a pair of dice.) He took those dudes for almost a thousand dollars. Once he'd stashed the winnings in his footlocker, he headed out to get something to eat, but when he returned from the mess hall, the guys had stolen back the money. In his fury, Daddio drank himself into a frenzy, took out his service pistol, and lit up the barracks. Nobody got hurt, but it was enough for the air force to show him the door. He was fortunate that he wasn't court-martialed--instead, they just discharged him, put him on a bus, and invited him to never come back.

This was a tension that ripped through my father's entire life--he demanded such rigid perfection from himself and the people around him, yet after too many drinks, or if he snapped, he would burn everything to the ground.

Daddio moved back to Philly. Undaunted, he took a job in a steel mill while putting himself through night school. He studied engineering and showed a real aptitude for both electricity and the science of refrigeration. One day, after being passed over for a promotion at the steel mill for the third or fourth time because of his race, he simply walked out the door and never went back. He knew refrigeration, so he decided heÕd start his own business.

Daddio was brilliant. Like many sons, I worshipped my father, but he also terrified me. He was one of the greatest blessings of my life, and also one of my greatest sources of pain.

My mom was born Carolyn Elaine Bright. She's a Pittsburgh girl, born and raised in Homewood, a predominantly Black neighborhood on the east side of the city.

My mother, a.k.a. "Mom-Mom," is eloquent and sophisticated. She has a petite frame, with long, elegant, piano player's fingers, perfectly sized to deliver a gorgeous rendition of "Für Elise." She had been a standout student at Westinghouse High School and was one of the first Black women to ever study at Carnegie Mellon University. Mom-Mom would often say that knowledge was the only thing that the world couldn't take away from you. And she only cared about three things: education, education, and education.

She loved business-banking, finance, sales, contracts. Mom-Mom always had her own money.

Life moved quickly for my mother, as it often did in those days. She married her first husband at the age of twenty, had a daughter, and was divorced less than three years later. By twenty-five, as a struggling single mom, she was probably one of the most educated African American women in all of Pittsburgh, yet she was still working jobs beneath the level of her true potential. Feeling trapped and craving bigger opportunities, she packed up the baby and moved to live with her mother--my grandmother Gigi--in Philadelphia.

My parents met in the summer of 1964. Mom-Mom was working as a notary in the Fidelity Bank in Philly. She was rolling out with some girlfriends to a party, and one of them told her she just had to meet this man. His name was Will Smith.

In many ways, Mom-Mom is the total opposite of my father. Whereas Daddio was the boisterous, charismatic center of attention, Mom-Mom is quiet and reserved; not because she's shy or intimidated, but because she "only speaks when it improves on silence." She loves words and always chooses them carefully--she speaks with an academic sophistication. Daddio, on the other hand, was loud, spewing the lingo of a 1950s North Philly hood rat. He loved the poetry of his profanity--I once heard him call a man a "dirty rat, cocksuckin', low-down, mangy pig fucker."

Mom-Mom doesn't use profanity.

It's important to note here, that back in the day, Daddio was the man. Six foot two, smart, good-looking, the proud owner of a fire-engine-red convertible Pontiac. He was funny; he could sing; he could play the guitar. He could lock people into him--he was always the dude standing in the middle of a party with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, a master storyteller who could keep a room buzzing.

When Mom-Mom first saw Daddio, he reminded her of a tall Marvin Gaye. He was savvy and knew his way around people. He could talk his way into a party, get free drinks and a table near the front. Daddio had a way of moving through the world like everything was under control, it was all going to be fine. This was comforting for my mom.

My mother's memory of their first days together is just a blurred montage of restaurants and clubs, strung together by a stream of jokes and laughter. Mom-Mom couldn't get over how funny he was, but most important to her, he was ambitious. He had his own business. He had employees. He wanted to work in white neighborhoods, with white people working for him.

Daddio was going places.

My father wasn't used to interacting with women of my mother's educational accomplishments--Man, this bird's smart as a muthafucka, he thought. Daddio was the street smarts to Mom-Mom's book smarts.

My parents had a lot in common, too. They both had a passion for music. They loved jazz, blues, and, later, funk and R&B. They lived through the glorious Motown days and spent much of it dancing together in musty basement parties and jazz clubs.

But there were strange commonalities, as well--the stuff that startles you and makes you think, This must be God's plan. Both of my parents had mothers who were nurses who worked night shifts (one was Helen; one was Ellen). Both of my parents had short-lived marriages in their early twenties, and they both had daughters. And in perhaps the strangest coincidence, they had both named their daughters Pam.

My parents got married in a small ceremony at Niagara Falls in 1966. Soon after, Daddio moved into my grandmother Gigi's house, on North Fifty-Fourth Street in West Philadelphia. It wasn't long before they combined their very different strengths and talents into an effective team. Mom-Mom ran Daddio's office: payroll, contracts, taxes, accounting, permits. And Daddio got to do what he did best: work hard and make money.

Both of my parents would later speak fondly of those early years. They were young, in love, ambitious, and they were movin' on up.

My full name is Willard Carroll Smith II--not Junior. Daddio would always correct people: 'Hey! He ain't no mutherfuckin' Junior.' He felt like calling me 'Junior' diminished both of us.

I was born on September 25, 1968. My mom says that from the moment I showed up, I was a talker. Always smiling, yapping, and babbling away, content to just be making noise.

Gigi worked the graveyard shift at Jefferson Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia, so she'd take care of me in the mornings while my parents were at work. Her house had a huge porch, which served as my front-row seat to the drama of North Fifty-Fourth Street, and a stage on which I could join in the theatrics. She'd prop me up on that porch and watch me jibber-jabber with anybody and everybody who walked by. Even at that age, I loved having an audience.

My twin brother and sister, Harry and Ellen, were born on May 5, 1971. And counting Mom-Mom's daughter Pam, just like that there would now be six of us under one roof.

Fortunately, the North Philly entrepreneur in Daddio was alive and well. He had gone from repairing refrigerators to installing and maintaining refrigerator and freezer cases in major supermarkets. Business was taking off-he was expanding beyond Philly into the surrounding suburbs. He started to build a fleet of trucks and hire a crew of refrigeration and electrical technicians. He also rented a small building to use as his base of operations.

Daddio was always hustling. I remember one particularly frigid winter, cash got tight, so he taught himself how to repair kerosene heaters. They were all the rage in Philly at the time. He put up a bunch of flyers, and people started bringing him their broken heaters. Daddio figured out that once he'd fixed a heater, he'd have to "test" it for a couple days, to make sure it was working. At any given time, he'd have ten or twelve kerosene heaters "being tested for the quality of his work." That many heaters will easily warm a West Philly row home, even in the coldest of winters. So Daddio canceled our gas service, kept his family warm and toasty for the winter, and got paid for it.

By the time that I was two years old, Daddio had established his business firmly enough to buy a house about a mile away from Gigi in a middle-class neighborhood of West Philly called Wynnefield.

I grew up at 5943 Woodcrest Avenue on a tree-lined street of thirty grayish-red brick row homes, all connected. The physical proximity of the houses cultivated a strong sense of community. (It also meant that if your neighbor had roaches, you had roaches, too.) Everybody knew everybody. For a young Black family in the 1970s, this was as American dream as you could get.

Across the street was Beeber Middle School and its majestic concrete playground. Basketball, baseball, girls jumpin' double Dutch. The ol' heads slap-boxing. And the second the summer hit, pop goes the water plug. Our neighborhood was thick with kids, and we were always outside playing. Living within one hundred yards of my house, there were almost forty kids my age. Stacey, David, Reecie, Cheri, Michael, Teddy, Shawn, Omarr, and on and on--and that's not even counting their siblings, or the kids on the next blocks. (Stacey Brooks is my oldest friend in the world. We met the day my family moved to Woodcrest. I was two, she was three. Our mothers pushed our strollers up to each other and introduced us. I was in love with her by the time I was seven. But she was in love with David Brandon. He was nine.)

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press (November 9, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1984877925
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1984877925
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.53 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.37 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches
• #80 in Black & African American Biographies
• #205 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies
• #686 in Memoirs (Books)

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About the author

Mark manson.

Mark Manson is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, the mega-bestseller that reached #1 in fourteen different countries. Mark’s books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

Mark runs one of the largest personal growth websites in the world, MarkManson.net, a blog with more than two million monthly readers and half a million subscribers. His writing is often described as ‘self-help for people who hate self-help’ — a no-BS brand of life advice and cultural commentary that has struck a chord with people around the globe. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, Forbes, Vice, CNN, and Vox, among many others. He currently lives in New York City.

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'Yellowstone' star Forrie J. Smith says he was 'kicked off' flight for refusing to sit next to masked passenger

"Yellowstone" star Forrie J. Smith took to Instagram on Saturday to say he was "kicked off" a flight and left stranded in Houston after refusing to sit next to another passenger wearing a mask . 

"I just got kicked off a plane," Smith said. "Because I told them I didn't feel comfortable sitting next to somebody with a mask on."

“I’ve been sitting in an airport for three hours. Ya, I'm drinking," Smith, who plays Lloyd Pierce on the hit Western series, continued. "I ain't drunk, but they throw me off the plane because I'm drunk, because you people won't stand up and tell everybody what bulls--t this is.”

"I just told them I didn't feel comfortable about sitting next to somebody that had to wear a mask, and I'm off the plane," Smith reiterated before the video ended.

In the comments, people asked why Smith cared if another person was wearing a mask. Many suggested instances where masking would be appropriate for protecting their health and others.

It's unclear what airline Smith was traveling on. His representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smith has previously been vocal about his public health beliefs. He skipped the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2022 due to Covid vaccination requirements.

"I’m not vaccinated, I will not get vaccinated,” Smith said in a now deleted Instagram video. "I believe they compromise your immunities … It’s no offense to anyone. It’s just my beliefs. I just don’t believe in that stuff." 

Katherine Itoh is a news associate for NBC News.

Oklahoma set to execute death row inmate Michael DeWayne Smith as he maintains his innocence for 2002 murders

A n Oklahoma death row inmate is set to be executed on Thursday morning for a double slaying that happened more than two decades ago.

Michael DeWayne Smith, 41, who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection, would be the first person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 12th inmate put to death since the state resumed executions in 2021 following a nearly seven-year hiatus resulting from problems with executions in 2014 and 2015, The Associated Press reported.

Smith was convicted of killing Janet Moore, 41, and Sharath Pulluru, 22, in separate shootings in February 2002.

He continued to profess his innocence as he expressed his “deepest apologies and deepest sorrows to the families” of the victims during a clemency hearing last month.

“I didn’t commit these crimes. I didn’t kill these people,” Smith said, breaking into tears.

“I was high on drugs. I don’t even remember getting arrested.”

But the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied him clemency in a 4-1 vote.

Prosecutors say Smith was a ruthless gang member who killed both victims in misguided acts of revenge and confessed his involvement in the killings to police and two other people.

They claim he killed Moore because he was looking for her son, who he mistakenly thought had told police about his whereabouts.

Smith then killed Pulluru later that day, prosecutors say. Pulluru was a convenience store clerk who Smith believed had disrespected his gang during an interview with a newspaper reporter.

Smith’s attorney, Mark Henricksen, argued that Smith is intellectually disabled, a condition worsened by years of heavy drug use, and that his life should be spared and he should be allowed to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Mr Henricksen said Smith was in a PCP-induced haze when he confessed to police, and that key elements of his confession aren’t supported by facts.

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