Hollywood Star Will Smith Shares Thoughts About Witnessing Violence at Home as a Kid

Will Smith recently opened up on CBS Sunday Morning how he felt when he saw his dad's violence at home towards his mom when he was a young boy. The experience made Smith blame himself for not doing anything to protect her, as per Yahoo Entertainment News.

According to Smith, that moment defined who he is. The actor, who was nine at the time, was shocked by the violence, and failing to intervene on his mom's behalf made him feel like a coward most of his life. Smith said the incident also made him doubt his accomplishment as retribution or as an act of apology to his mother for his inaction that day.

Will Smith remembers his father

The actor said that his father was violent but was also dedicated.

He remembered that he was at every game, play and recital. Although he was an alcoholic, he was sober at every premier of his movies. His father also listened to every record and visited every studio wherever the actor worked. He said that his father, Willard Carroll Smith Sr, was a perfectionist and terrorized, yet provided food. He had a brutal temper and, when under the influence of alcohol, became an "idiot who broke his own rules."

Smith, nicknamed his father Daddio and remembered considering committing suicide when his parents divorced a few years later. For Smith, his dad was the greatest blessing of his life and "one of my greatest sources of pain."

Impact of the violence on him

Smith disclosed that he became a "pleaser" in life to prevent his father's violent outbursts. He said he was the entertainer in the family to keep everything light and enjoyable and to stop the beatings from happening. He also admitted to feeling great shame for not protecting his mother and called himself a coward for his inability to stop the abuse as he was the eldest.

In the memoir, Will wrote about wanting to kill his father to "avenge" his mother when he was left to care for Willard after the man was sick with cancer.

He recalled that while wheeling his father from his bedroom toward the bathroom, darkness "arose" within him one night. The bath between two rooms goes past the top of the stairs. As a child, he admitted to fantasizing about avenging his mother. He vowed that when he was big enough and strong enough and was no longer a coward, he would slay him.

He remembers pausing on the top of the stairs and fantasizing about shoving the old man down and getting get away with it. He was telling himself that he was Will Smith, one of the best actors in the world, and no one would ever believe that he killed his father on purpose. He thought his 911 call would be Academy Award level.

However, the decades of pain, anger, and resentment eventually receded, and he wheeled his father to the bathroom.

Willard died in 2016, and in his father's last moments, he said he was able to forgive him, and he was also able to forgive himself. His father's death "started a new phase of my life," the "Men In Black" actor said.