Hollywood
Will Smith Memoir Notes Wanting To Murder His Father
Will Smith‘s upcoming memoir details his complicated relationship with his late father.
Published exclusively to PEOPLE, an excerpt from his new memoir, Will, recalls a violent memory from his childhood.
“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 writes.
“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.”
Smith notes a violent event that “defined” who he is. He shares that his father, William Carroll Smith Sr., struck his mother Caroline Bright.
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“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.”
Will revealed that he wanted to seek revenge.
“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.”
He had contemplated murdering his father.
“I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it,” he writes.
“As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom.”
His father died in 2016 and Will reflected on their relationship.
“There is nothing that you can receive from the material world that will create inner peace or fulfilment.”
“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.”
His memoir is set to release November 9.
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