In an interview with People magazine, Willow Smith talked about her history with self-harm and why she believes she had a responsibility to share her story.
The daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith shared her early struggles with fame after being thrust into the spotlight upon the release of her hit song “Whip My Hair” almost nine years ago. Smith spoke to the outlet about the pressures of fame she encountered. “I was super young, and I had a dream, but all I really wanted to do was sing, and I didn’t equate that with all the business and the stress that ended up coming with it,” she said.
Smith said science and spirituality inspired her to stop cutting. “I was like, ‘This is pointless — my body is a temple,’ and I completely stopped,” she said. “It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I had learned to see myself as worthy.”
Smith revealed her cutting to fans and her family last year on “Red Table Talk,” and according to USA Today, when her mother offered to edit Smith’s experience out of the episode, Willow insisted on keeping it in so her story could empower others with similar struggles.
Willow said, “I know so many girls who struggle with this, and I’m like, ‘I can’t take it out.’ At a certain point, I don’t want to take it out. Because I feel like people are gonna be like, ‘Wow I feel that. If she’s going through that, and she got over that, I can do the same thing.’ ”
Jada said her daughter’s openness had been a healing experience for their whole family. “She brought a lot of healing to some of our family members that we didn’t know were cutting either,” Pinkett Smith said. “It created this connectivity of different people within our circle that we just had no idea were having that difficulty. It was amazing, it really was. Just because she had that courage.”
