Being a famous kid like Willow Smith seems like a surreal experience. Brain still not fully developed, you want to have normal, childlike experiences. But you can’t when your dad is Will Smith and your mom is Jada Pinkett. The magnifying glass hovers over you too. Moreover, with a hit like “Whip My Hair,” Willow ended up having adult responsibilities way too early in her life. Ultimately, it felt like she had no agency over anything. So what does she do? She cuts all of her hair off so she can’t whip her hair anymore.
Recently, Will Smith spoke on the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood. There, he opens up about how vital his family was in navigating the stresses and responsibilities of Hollywood. This made him recall one moment where his daughter Willow was fed up and ready to go home at one point in her tour with Justin Bieber. However, an agreement with Jay-Z and Roc Nation necessitated her cooperation to grind it out further. Willow had other plans.
Will Smith Proud His Daughter Shaved Her Head in Rebellious Moment
“Hit record, 20,000 kids whipping their hair in Dublin, and she comes off stage, and is like, ‘I’m done, Daddy,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, baby, that was a great show!’ And she was like, ‘No, no, I mean I’m done! I’m ready to go home!’” Will Smith recalls. “I was like, ‘Well, no, you can’t go home, sweetie, you promised Mr. Jay-Z that you were gonna do these 30 days of this tour,” Smith explained. “She said, ‘No, Daddy, you promised Mr. Jay-Z.’ And I was like, ‘Sweetie, I get it, but we promised as a family, and you have to finish.’”
“She looked at me — I’ll never forget the look in her eyes, and she was like, ‘It doesn’t matter to you that I’m finished, Daddy?’” Will Smith continues. “And I was like, ‘Well, yes sweetie, it matters, but you can’t be finished.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, okay.’”
Consequently, Willow let it be known that when she wants to be finished, she’s going to be finished. “We go back to the hotel, and Jada had just left, so I’m there, it’s my first night of daddy duty,” Will Smith explains. “And [Willow] came out the next morning and she had shaved her head bald. In the middle of her Whip My Hair tour, she had shaved her head bald. And it was like a magical moment. I was like, ‘Got it.’”
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