Will Smith Recalls Last FaceTime with Dad Before His Death

Will Smith is getting candid about the relationship he had with his father and how their dynamic changed when Will Sr. found out he was dying.

The 53-year-old King Richard actor spoke with Spike Lee during his event “Will Smith: An Evening of Stories with Friends” at Kings Theatre in New York City’s Brooklyn Tuesday night, discussing his new memoir and sharing life stories with fans. Throughout the night, Smith praised his dad, closing out the evening by sharing the intimate final phone call he had with him shortly before he died five years ago.

“My father, in 2016, was diagnosed with everything. They gave him six weeks to live,” Smith said, getting emotional. “It’s something interesting when somebody knows that they’re gonna die. If somebody knows they’re dying and you know, it changes everything in the interaction. The hellos become rich, and the goodbyes become so complete.”

Smith said his father was “deteriorating” during the weekly visits he made in between filming a movie, but they shared many meaningful conversations that allowed them to get everything out on the table.

“We tuned into one another in a way that we never had. He was given six weeks but he ended up living for three months,” he said.

Lee, 64, then asked, “Why is it that it takes loved ones being at the end of their lives? Why can’t we get that before people are dying?”

“Here’s what I would say to everybody out there,” responded Smith, adding, “We have relationships that are, you know, not the best … there are people who we wish they had done better to us, we wished could have loved us better…. I would just say: Just call them. You wanna be able to say that you tried. Death is so final. I swear to you you don’t want to be left with that.”

“My father and I had time to talk out everything. We had weeks and weeks; every single conversation was rich and powerful, and we got clean. Some people don’t get the time,” he explained.

Smith remembered being told to call his dad at 3 a.m. while he was on set filming his movie Bright because of an emergency. “Even when you’re expecting it, you don’t wanna have to make the call,” said Smith. “… I say, ‘Hey, what’s up, Daddio?’ and he says, ‘Hey, man. I think it’s tonight.’ ”

The two then FaceTimed. “We sit and we just look at each other for about 20 minutes. The soldier was gone, and all I could see was a scared little boy inside of him just like the scared little boy inside of me. … I hear my sister in the background, she says, ‘Dad, you’re just lookin’. You don’t have anything you wanna say to Will?’ ”

“And I see him searching for one last brick, searching for one something, you know, but he’s empty,” Smith continued, “and he says, ‘Anything I ain’t told this m—–f—– up till now he for sure ain’t gonna get it from me tonight!’ We shared one final laugh, and 45 minutes later Daddio was gone.”

Smith said, “I wasn’t even crying because we got the opportunity to get finished.”

In his book Will, Smith opens up about the complicated relationship he had with his father, who, with his mother Caroline Bright, raised Smith and his three siblings in Philadelphia.

“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,” he writes. “He listened to every record. He visited every studio. The same intense perfectionism that terrorized his family put food on the table every night of my life.”

Smith’s parents separated when he was a teen and divorced in 2000. Despite maintaining a close relationship with his father, the actor writes that his anger stemming from childhood surfaced again decades later, while he cared for Will Sr., who had cancer.

Will is available for purchase.