Will Smith is opening up like never before in his new memoir, Will. In an exclusive excerpt published by PEOPLE, the 53-year-old superstar recalls the complicated relationship he had with his father, Will Sr., who he admits was violent.
“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 even recalled the time he witnessed his father attack his then-wife and Will’s mother, Caroline.
“When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed,” Will said. “I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am. 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.”
Will later recalled in the book his feelings about his father following Will Sr.’s diagnosis with cancer which led him to need a wheelchair to get around.
“One night, as I delicately wheeled him from his bedroom toward the bathroom, a darkness arose within me,” the actor wrote in his memoir, per People. “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 continued, “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. As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom. Thank God we’re judged by our actions, not by our trauma-driven, inner outbursts.”
Smith’s parents separated when he was a teenager and divorced in 2000. Smith Sr. passed away in 2016.
