5 times Will Smith lost his cool and got in trouble
The smack heard round the world. That’s what this year’s Academy Awards are likely to be remembered for, after Will Smith struck comedian Chris Rock in the face as he presented the award for best documentary feature.
Smith, 53, is one of the world’s highest-paid actors and later won his first Oscar for his leading role in King Richard, a film about the father of tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams. He took the opportunity during his acceptance speech to apologise for his earlier behaviour.
But it’s not the first time that the actor has found himself caught up in controversy. Here are some of Smith’s other surprising outbursts.
1. His 1989 arrest for assault
Before he was a Hollywood star, Smith first achieved recognition as one half of the hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. In 1989, the musical act won their first Grammy. But just months later, Smith was arrested for his alleged involvement in an attack on record promoter William Hendricks that almost blinded the victim in one eye.
Smith, an up-and-coming star who was just 20 at the time, allegedly ordered his bodyguard to attack Hendricks at a radio station. The rapper was arrested and spent the night in a Philadelphia jail, where he was charged with aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. The charges were eventually dropped, and Smith has always maintained his innocence.
2. Owing millions in unpaid taxes
As a successful music artist, Smith was making good money – but spending it just as quickly. By the time he landed his starring role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1990, he owed US$2.8 million in back taxes to the IRS. Most of his assets, including his car and home, were repossessed. Despite being the star of one of America’s most popular TV series, Smith was keeping only a fraction of his pay cheques, with 70 per cent going directly to the IRS until his debt was paid off by the show’s third season.
3. “Raging jealousy” towards Tupac Shakur
Pinkett Smith is known for her candidness, and she’s spoken openly about her intimate friendship with one of rap’s most influential artists, Tupac Shakur. She and the legendary rapper attended high school together, and were still close when she began dating Smith in 1994. In his 2021 memoir, Will, Smith opened up about how threatening he found his then-girlfriend’s relationship with Shakur.
“I hated that I wasn’t what he was in the world, and I suffered a raging jealousy,” Smith wrote. “I wanted Jada to look at me like that.” The Men in Black star has also admitted that he was always stand-offish with Shakur, who was fatally shot in 1996. Smith has said that he could “never open up” around the late rapper, and that he was “too immature” to have a friendship with him.
4. Attacking his Fresh Prince co-star and torpedoing her career
Smith clashed with Janet Hubert, the actress who originally played Aunt Vivian on the popular 1990s TV show. She left abruptly in the third season, and Smith wasn’t exactly gracious about her departure at the time.
“I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show, because I know she is going to dog me in the press,” said Smith in a 1993 interview. “She has basically gone from a quarter of a million dollars a year to nothing.”
The two made up in 2020, but Hubert made sure to let Smith know exactly what his attacks had done to her career. “Now understand you were able to move forward but those words, calling a black woman ‘difficult’ in Hollywood, is the kiss of death. It’s the kiss of death,” said Hubert. “And it’s hard enough being a dark-skinned black woman in this business.”
5. That time he slapped a reporter on the red carpet
The Chris Rock attack was not the first time Smith got physical at a big event. He also made headlines in 2012 when he smacked Vitalii Sediuk, a Ukrainian prankster and reporter, after he went in for a kiss at the Men in Black III premiere in Moscow. Afterwards, Smith told media on the red carpet: “He’s lucky I didn’t sucker punch him.”
Smith got flak from the public, which ranged from accusations of homophobia to suggesting he was ignorant of European cultural etiquette.