*Will Smith said daughter Willow ‘tested’ him following the success of her single “Whip My Hair.”
On wife Jada’s “Red Table Talk” series, the actor opens up about the time he “realized that my family wasn’t happy with the direction that I was taking them.”
Smith also explained why he’s been so open on social media in the past year, saying it all stems from 2012 and his family rebelling against his role as family leader, TooFab reports.
“One of the major things that happened is that I hit that midlife-crisis point, where I’ve built all of the things I’ve ever dreamed of,” he said. “And in my family — 2012 I secretly call the year of the mutiny. And 2012 was really the year that my family rejected the direction of my leadership.”
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“I was used to the whole family working the family business and being run like a military unit. You follow orders, you have goals, you achieve things and there’s punishment from the higher ranks if you don’t do what you are told to do,” he said.
“Willow was really the first person during ‘Whip My Hair’ that decided she didn’t want to do what I said. Because she was the baby girl, she really had the most power over me,” he continued. “As a man — if your daughter says no, there’s really nothing you can do. She really tested me. She was like, no she didn’t want to. She was done with ‘Whip My Hair.’ She was done with performing, and as a protest she shaved her head bald.”
Smith said that brought him to the realization that “my family wasn’t happy.”
“So, I took two years off,” he said.
And this led to him hitting up his social pages more actively as an “outlet” where he could “deliver the lessons that I had learned to the world in this new media.”
Will said he’s also proud to see wife Jada keeping it real on her Facebook Watch talk show.
“She has finally found a lane for her voice. Acting didn’t really do it for her; music didn’t really do it for her; parenting didn’t really give her the full expression that she wanted,” he told the publication. “Starting a family was beautiful for her, but it wasn’t the full expression of herself that she had been seeking. And Red Table Talk was the first thing I’ve ever seen where she gets to be her fully unapologetic and doesn’t have to feel unwelcomed or judged.”
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