Desperate times call for desperate measures.
While on his book tour, Will Smith recalls how he went broke after a huge tax evasion bill and was forced to borrow $10,000 from a drug dealer.
Before his acting career, Will was a successful music artist along with his childhood friend, DJ Jazzy Jeff. The two made hits together, but unfortunately, Will was having too much fun and underpaid his taxes. The IRS took plenty of Will’s possessions and garnished his income.
The iconic actor tells Idris Elba, “I had to sell everything: my beautiful house, my four cars, two motorcycles. I was all the way back to broke. So, I borrowed $10,000 from a friend of mine who was a purveyor of neighborhood pharmaceuticals and I moved to Los Angeles.”
It seems easy to forget to pay your taxes when you’re surrounded by money, and Will was young at the time. However, Smith says he did not forget to pay the taxes. He just felt like he shouldn’t have to.
“I didn’t forget. I just didn’t pay my taxes for about two and a half years. And we’d sold 3 million records…America is a big country. I thought they don’t need everybody’s money…But Uncle Sam wanted his money and I didn’t have it,” Will jokingly says.
Will was hit with reality, when he & Jazzy Jeff began to create a new album to help with the bill. However, the album ultimately was not good.
“We rushed to make another album and the album flopped. It was sad. So, I sold everything and I knew whatever my new life would be I could feel was in Los Angeles,” Smith adds.
Will was able to figure things out and got an offer to work on a sitcom that would later become ‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.”
