The grass is not always greener on the other side. Sometimes, the green is just an illusion. Willow Smith, an actress and singer, was able to figure out this life mystery at the tender age of 11.
In an interview on Sirius XM’s Bevelations, she revealed the thought process behind her logic for withdrawing from the limelight at that age.
“I saw at a very young age — I saw the dark path I could’ve gone down,” Smith said in the interview. “Going into 12, I had touched a sadness that I didn’t know existed, and that was terrifying.”
During that stage in her career, Smith was embarking on celebrity that transcended her identity as just the daughter of global superstar Will Smith. A blossoming acting career and charting song, along with a worldwide tour, were all on her itinerary before she could even graduate teen-hood.
However, Smith was wise enough to discern that being a big star in Hollywood at a young age might not be the right move for her. The thought of sacrificing her youth in exchange for a career in the entertainment industry was daunting to the multi-talent and could lead to “earlier tragedies.”
Listen To Willow Smith On Bevy Smith’s Bevelations:
The 21-year-old speaks of her higher self giving her insight and the courage to leave it all behind.
“The fear is an upward and forward motion — It’s not a deep, heartbreaking, like, world-shattering fear,” Smith said. “I really just think my higher self was like, ‘No, this is going to go bad for you.’ And I just had to listen.”
Smith witnessed the amount of work her parents exerted to become who they are today, and even with the fruits of their labor there’s still something very cannibalistic about the insatiable price of fame.
“I just knew everything felt wrong even though I experience fear in my everyday life pertaining to my music,” Smith says. “My family is really the only reason I feel like I recovered from that time in the way that I did.”
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