The successful actor Will Smith recently talked about his daughter and well-appreciated musician Willow and how he made a mistake by disregarding her disinterest in the music industry at the age of ten.
One of the new and upcoming rockstars, Willow Smith, had an early start to her career when she released ‘Whip My Hair’ in 2010, at the age of nine. At the age of ten, she decided that it was too much, and she didn’t want to perform or be in the public eye anymore. She spoke about her wishes to her father Will, but he initially brushed her views off, which he described as a big mistake.
When she was on tour with Justin Bieber back in 2010, she suddenly felt the urge to stop performing and said that to Will. However, the actor overlooked the severity of her situation and made her continue performing until she exclaimed, ‘It doesn’t matter to you that I’m done, daddy?’ which hit Will like a brick in the head.
Initially, he was confident about his parenting ways, he stated:
“I was like, ‘I am parenting the shit out of these kids.’ I felt like I was doing really, really well.”
Although he initially disregarded her wishes and assumed that she had just gotten tired, he understood how much Willow had been affected after a terrifying incident. One morning the young musician joined her family for breakfast with a shaved head. This sight woke Will Smith up, and he realized that he has been pressuring her for something that makes unhappy.
Here’s how Will Smith described that moment:
“I’m looking, and I’m like, ‘Got it. I got it, baby. I’m sorry. I apologize. You can stop.’ It was terrifying. I felt like I had been texting looking at my phone and stepped out into the street in front of a bus, and Willow snatched me back.
As strange as it sounds, at that moment, I discovered feelings. Because of my childhood, because of the way I was raised. I didn’t care about how I felt, so I damn sure didn’t care about how somebody else felt. My feelings didn’t matter in my childhood home. You did what you were told to do.
I had to really think about the question she was asking me. The question she was really asking was, ‘Daddy, does it matter to you how I feel?’ It was so explosive in my mind. That was like a deep, existential question. That was a major transition for me in my life. I feel like Willow saved me from what could have been tragic in my life.”
Raising a child is already challenging, but raising them in front of millions of people seems even more demanding. Fortunately for Will, his daughter was mature enough to understand what she wanted or didn’t want to do. After having a much-needed hiatus, she returned to the music world by releasing her debut album ‘Ardipithecus’ in 2015 in the pop genre. However, with her most recent 2021 album, ‘Lately I Feel Everything,’ she switched to a more punk, alternative rock genre and showed presence in the rock world.
You can have a listen to ‘Lately I Feel Everything’ through Spotify below.
