Willow Smith Says It Took Two Years For Her To “Forgive” Will Over How He Handled “Whip My Hair” Success: “He Was So Harsh At Certain Times”

Sometimes parents just don’t understand. That’s how Willow Smith felt after she fell out with her father, Will Smith, over her music career.

Two years is how long Willow says it took for her to forgive her famous actor father following the early success of her hit song “Whip My Hair.” On Monday’s episode of “Red Table Talk,” the 18-year-old opened about how the fame of the song became overwhelming for her at such a young age – who at the time was 10. “I definitely had to forgive [Jada Pinkett Smith] and daddy for that whole ‘Whip My Hair’ thing. It was mostly daddy because he was so harsh at certain times,” Willow revealed.

“It was a couple of years, honestly. Trying to regain trust for not feeling like I was being listened to or like no one cared how I felt,” she continued. Not only did Willow learn to forgive her parents, she in turn forgave herself. “And I had to forgive myself because I felt guilty because everyone is trying to make me better, trying to make my dream. But I didn’t really understand what my dream entailed,” she said.

Willo previously admitted that she resorted to cutting herself to deal with the anxiety she felt from the song’s great success. “It was after that whole ‘Whip My Hair’ thing and I had just stopped doing singing lessons and I was kind of just in this gray area of, ‘Who am I? Do I have a purpose? Is there anything I can do besides this?’” Willow said of her 10-year-old self.

“After the tour and the promotion and all of that, they wanted me to finish my album,” she continued. “And I was like, I’m not gonna do that. And after all of that kinda settled down and it was like a kind of lull, I was just listening to a lot of dark music. It was just so crazy and I was plunged into this black hole, and I was cutting myself.” Willow said she “totally lost my sanity.”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

“I never talk about it because it was such a short weird point in my life. But you have to pull yourself out of it,” she explained.