The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Jaden Smith

Jaden Smith is arguably among the most successful nepo babies in Hollywood. The son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jaden has been in the public eye since infancy. He's also followed in the footsteps of his famous parents by pursuing various pursuits within the realm of show business. 

In that regard, he experienced a significant degree of success when he was still a kid. His first film role — playing the son of his dad's character in "The Pursuit of Happyness" — begat others, including a starring role opposite Jackie Chan in the 2010 reboot of "The Karate Kid." As he grew older, he established a successful career as a rapper along with other ventures including his own fashion collective, MSFTSrep. 

Yet amidst all that success has come controversy and sadness. To find out more about that side of his life, read on for an exploration of the tragic story of Jaden Smith.

As the child of two huge celebrities, Jaden Smith has been famous since as early as he can remember. "People were following me around when I was in a stroller," he recalled in an interview with Mr. Porter. "Before I could speak, I could feel the presence of people I didn't know who were interested in me."

The celebrity status imposed upon him at birth also hindered experiencing typical relationships with other kids while growing up. "I didn't always get to hang out with normal people when I was young," he told Dazed. 

As a result of that unorthodox upbringing, Smith found at a young age that he could relate better to adults than his peers. He explained in an interview with BigBoyTV that this dynamic is something that he's ultimately found to be beneficial. "I am very happy that I spent my childhood with more adults than I did with kids my own age," he said, "because I was picking up more things from adults than I were [sic] from kids my own age."

All the movies that Jaden Smith made when he was younger led him to share top billing with his dad in the sci-fi drama "After Earth." The film flopped, and the uniformly negative reviews tended to focus on Jaden's middling abilities as an actor. "Cute as a child star, the now teenage Jaden ['The Karate Kid'] struggles to carry a film that requires acting beyond looking upset/surly/kicking things," read Metro's review. "He plays the role throughout with a face like a smacked bum," observed The Guardian, describing Jaden's character as showing no fear. "Or any emotion," the review added. "Or any acting talent of any sort."

"'After Earth' was an abysmal box office and critical failure," Will wrote in his memoir, "Me," via an excerpt appearing in People. "And what was worse was that Jaden took the hit. Fans and the press were absolutely vicious; they said and printed things about Jaden that I refuse to repeat. Jaden had faithfully done everything that I'd instructed him to do, and I had coached him into the worst public mauling he'd ever experienced."

Will also discussed that experience in an interview with Esquire, admitting that the fact he pulled his son into the project made its failure particularly painful. "That was excruciating," he said.

In 2013, Will Smith revealed that son Jaden Smith — then approaching his 15th birthday — told him that he wanted to become an emancipated minor, desiring to move out of his parents' home and into his own place.

While Smith didn't explain his son's motivations for that request at the time, he later confirmed that it was how he pushed his son into starring in "After Earth," only Jaden to be publicly eviscerated for it, that had left a bad taste in the teenager's mouth. "We never discussed it, but I know he felt betrayed. He felt misled, and he lost his trust in my leadership," Will wrote in his memoir, via Hello!, revealing that his son contemplated a dramatic measure. "At 15 years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered," he added. "He ultimately decided against it, but it sucks to feel like you've hurt your kids."

When father and son jointly appeared on the talk show hosted by trailblazing comedian Ellen DeGeneres, she asked about reports that Jaden was seeking to become an emancipated minor. He confirmed that he wasn't going through with it. "Here's the thing I need to explain: I'm not going anywhere," Jaden proclaimed, then jokingly added, "The thing that people don't get is everything at his house is free ... I think Imma be there for 20, 30 more years." 

Despite growing up in the proverbial lap of luxury, Jaden Smith has nonetheless experienced issues relating to anxiety, feelings that escalated during the pandemic. "I'm just stressed about everything, and it's really crazy," Smith explained in an interview with Apple Music, as reported by ETOnline. While he admitted he doesn't experience anxiety often, on those occasions that he does, it can be significant. "It's very strong ... genuine anxiety, where it's just like anything and everything," he added.

His mother, actor Jada Pinkett Smith, has been open about her own struggles with depression, which she claims to have successfully treated through the use of psychedlic drugs. She introduced her son to psychedelics, something they discussed during an episode of her Facebook Watch show, "Red Table Talk." "I had an experience, and during that experience, I understood what ego was for the first time. It was always in my head, talking, telling me what I was and what I wasn't. And for the first time, I had, like, an ego dissolution where I was like — that was the moment that really changed me," he said. 

Speaking of Jaden Smith's mom, Jada Pinkett Smith raised eyebrows and generated headlines with the revelations she made while promoting her memoir, "Worthy" — particularly when she made a 2024 appearance on "Today" and revealed that she and husband Will Smith had been separated since 2016.

A source close to the Smiths' children indicated that their offspring — especially Jaden — were less than thrilled about the bombshells that Pinkett Smith was dropping about their family. "They know [Will] has been going through a lot lately and this isn't helping," the source told ETOnline. "They wish some of their family's private matters remained private."

However, that account was countered by none other than Pinkett Smith herself, who told InStyle that she warned her kids about what secrets she was going to be spilling out in her tome. "What I did was tell them what's in the book, what stories I was going to tell about them specifically, and [ask] if they were okay with that," she explained, revealing she gave daughter Willow a pre-publication copy to read — something she did not do with son Jaden and stepson Trey (from her husband's first marriage to Sheree Zampino). "But the boys, I just told them what was in it. They'll read it eventually."

Jaden Smith may be young, but he's experienced some problems with his digestion. During an appearance on mom Jada Pinkett Smith's "Red Table Talk," he opened up about what he'd been experiencing. "My biggest gut problem would be, like, just not being hungry when I need to be or being stressed," he said, admitting he'd been experiencing a significant degree of discomfort. "I do have pain," he said.

According to Jaden, he was able to pin down the source of his problems to his chronic intake of sugar. "I eat so much sugar that I have a candida buildup that happens in my stomach," he explained. After undergoing medical testing, physicians were able to tailor a dietary regime for him that addressed his gut issues. "I was able to work with the doctors and really get my vitamins and get my supplements and, you know, protein shakes, and that's half of my diet," he said. "It's like a password that I have to find to my body."

In 2017, Jaden Smith made a big dietary change. "I recently became a vegetarian," he told Vanity Fair. Eventually, he took the next step and decided to become a full-on vegan. While his intention was to improve his health, that's not the way things went down. "Will [Smith] and I had a bit of an intervention with Jaden because he's a vegan now, but we realized he wasn't getting enough protein," his mother, Jaden Pinkett Smith, recalled during an episode of her online talk show, "Red Table Talk." "So he was wasting away. He just looked drained, he was just depleted, he wasn't getting the nutrients." Part of the problem, Jaden explained, was he was typically eating just one or two meals a day. 

Jaden's father, Will Smith, was also concerned about his appearance. "He had the dark circles under his eyes, there was even a little grayness to his skin," he said. "We got really nervous, but you're definitely looking better now." 

Jaden revealed that he'd backed away from his vegan aspirations, and had reverted back to vegetarianism — albeit with the occasional vegan forays every once in a while. "I'm vegetarian, I have tried to eat vegan meals," he said. "I'll go vegan for a week or so but for the past year I've been vegetarian."

Over the years, Jaden Smith has come to be something of a polarizing figure in the media. There's no doubt that he's built up an enviable fanbase (his Instagram following numbers close to 20 million), yet he also seems to attract a sizeable degree of hate and backlash. 

That's hardly a new phenomenon. Way back in 2010, when Smith was still just a kid, Entertainment Weekly (via CNN) reported that online message boards were bursting with resentment. "This 11-year-old really has the haters foaming," the magazine observed.

Years later, Smith was hit with backlash over his gender-fluid fashion style. By then, he told Nylon in 2016, he'd come to take all his haters in stride. "The world is going to keep bashing me for whatever I do, and I'm going to keep not caring," he said. In fact, when it came to backlash for his fashion choices, he was proud to be attacked for what he perceived as being a trailblazer who was ahead of his time. "I'm taking the brunt of it so that later on, my kids and the next generations of kids will all think that certain things are normal that weren't expected before my time," he said.

Jaden Smith's relationship with his father, rapper-turned-actor Will Smith, has endured the ups and downs of any father-son relationship. There was, however, a definite dip in the road back in 2017, when Jaden took to social media to share a grim message with his followers after botching his driver's test. "It's going to be so funny to tell my dad that I've failed straight up," he said while filming himself, sitting in the back of a car, for Instagram Live. 

Failing the test apparently sent the angsty teen into a fit of existential despair. "Everybody follow your heart, okay, you know what I'm saying? Do exactly what you want to do, be the you that you wanna be," he said, before declaring, "I'm about to move out of L.A., there's a lot bad things here," he said.

As he kept filming, Smith continued to discuss his misery. "I'm at the DMV. It just shows you how sad society and life is," he said, seeming to be holding back tears while cradling his forehead in his hand. 

In 2016, Jaden Smith and his family were hit with a tragic loss with the death of his grandfather, Willard Carroll Smith, Sr. The news of his death was shared via Instagram by Shari Zampino, Will Smith's first wife and mother of their son, Trey. "We're gonna miss you Daddio! You lived & played by your own rules ... you truly were 1 of a kind!" she wrote in the caption accompanying a photo of her ex-husband with his father and son.

While Jaden didn't comment on his grandfather's death, the relationship between his father and grandfather was complex. Writing in his memoir, "Me," Will reflected on his father's alcoholism and violent temper, which crystallized in a traumatic incident during his youth. "When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood," he wrote, as excerpted by People. 

Years later, when the elder Smith was in failing health and required a wheelchair, the actor contemplated fulfilling a promise he'd made to himself after that incident. "As a child I'd always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother," he wrote, admitting he briefly contemplated pushing his father's wheelchair down a staircase before deciding not to act on that urge.

In 2016, the internet became inundated with reports that Jaden Smith had taken his own life after a fake story appeared online, purporting to be a news update from CNN. Rumor-busting website Snopes reporting that not only was it a hoax, it was also a clickbait scam intended to lead readers to various apps. 

Another fake story appeared in 2019, appropriating CNN's logo to claim that Jaden and his father, Will Smith, were both killed in a car accident. According to Snopes, this fake news story also had a nefarious purpose, driving those who clicked on it to a dodgy website.

Jaden Smith was once again reported dead in 2023; as Snopes recalled, the source of this fake report was a Facebook post that read, "Will Smith Reveals His Heart 'Shattered' When son Jaden (15-year old) Confirmed To be" (the word "dead" doesn't appear, but is certainly implied). He was also the victim of a death hoax in 2024; clicking on that link, Snopes noted, took readers to websites telling them their computer had been infected with malware, offering phone numbers of alleged software companies who were actually scammers.

Jaden Smith's mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, shared a sad Instagram post in early 2024, revealing news that impacted the entire family. "Last night we lost one of our furry sons Fang. He brought so much love into our family, our animal pack and community. Thank you Fang for 15 years of pure joy. We are going to miss you soooooo much," she wrote, accompanying a photo of herself and the family's beloved dog.

In addition to dogs, Jaden Smith and his sister Willow reportedly warmed to other animals as pets when they were younger. According to a 2014 story in Us Weekly, the siblings were then enamored of their pet snakes. "Willow is obsessed with snakes," a source told the outlet, claiming at the time that she had 10 snakes living in her room, some of which weren't kept in cages but allowed to roam free. Jaden reportedly nicknamed his sister's snakes "girlfriends," and would cuddle up with the reptiles. "They slither into his bed and curl up with him!" the source claimed.

Prior to Jada Pinkett Smith's 2024 revelation that she and husband Will Smith had been estranged and living apart for several years, she made headlines when it appeared she was dating August Alsina; she subsequently confirmed she'd had a relationship with the rapper, who's more than two decades her junior. 

That complicated "entanglement" — as she described the relationship — wouldn't have happened had it not been for her son, Jaden Smith; he was the one who first introduced his mom to the rapper who'd become her boyfriend. At first they were just friends, with the relationship eventually turning romantic before it ended. Pinkett Smith and Alsina eventually broke it off. 

Discussing the relationship with husband Will Smith during an episode of "Red Table Talk," Pinkett Smith explained that her motivation was simply to make herself feel better. "It had been so long since I felt good," she said, as reported by Today.com.

Jaden Smith and sister Willow fit the textbook definition of nepo babies, using their parents' fame as a springboard to launching themselves as celebrities in their own right. And while the perks are obvious, Jaden has also discussed the downside of having famous folks.

During an on-camera interview with BigBoyTV, he admitted he initially didn't realize how rarified his life really was. "I thought everybody's parents made movies, and everyone made movies with their kids, too," he explained.

Once he came to understand just how famous and beloved his parents were, he also came to comprehend that would bring an extreme degree of scrutiny to anything he did. "You know ... it's something that my parents were aware of, and they made us aware of it before, you know, we even found out from other people that there was this expectation on us," he said. "They said, 'Hey, people out there in the outside world, they're gonna say ... you have to live up to our expectations of what we've done, and what we've accomplished in our life and you have to live with that.' So we kind of knew that when we were young."