REVENGE

Will Smith Says He Contemplated Murdering His Abusive Father

“I could shove him down, and easily get away with it,” the star wrote.

Will Smith writes in his forthcoming memoir, Will, that he contemplated murdering his ill father as revenge. Smith said his father punched his mother so hard she collapsed and spit blood when the actor was just 9 years old: “That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am… 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.” Smith cared for Will Smith Sr. when the latter was diagnosed with cancer in 2016. Smith wrote that as he wheeled his father’s bed from one room to another, “I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it… 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… I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom.” Will Smith Sr. died in 2016.