Nearly three years ago, not only did superstar Will Smith lost an important piece to his life, but also the city of Philadelphia--the city of brotherly love--also lost an honorable man, husband and father Will Smith‘s dad, Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., died.
In a Facebook Live session, Will Smith revealed that he was on a movie set when he heard his father's grim diagnosis.
"I got about two weeks into the preparation for the film, and my father was diagnosed with cancer. First, you know, it stunned me, and then it was the magical work of the universe," Smith confessed. "I could not believe that this was the film I was working on, and I was forced to face my father's mortality."
"It was rough for about a week, and then I got it together. And I decided that we would use the process of the character, who was suffering a loss, and I would share my preparation with my father," he explained.
Smith used the movie's focus on love, time and death as talking points with his father, which he says led to "some of the most open and powerful conversations that we ever had."
Will revealed on a episode of Ellen that his father kept a sense of humor up until the very end.
"They gave him six weeks [to live] and he actually lived for four months," Smith revealed. "So about three months into the six weeks, I go to see him one day, and he goes,' Man, this crap is embarrassing.' And I said, 'What, dad?' He said, 'Man, you tell everyone you gonna be dead in six weeks, three months later you still hanging around.'"
It was the little things that the star said helped him learn to appreciate the smaller things and forget about the pressures of Hollywood.
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"It was so magnificent to me… my father died on Nov. 7, but it was so powerful for me to be cleansed of the box office," he said. "Like, I don't need the box office to be huge on this film. I don't need to win any awards, you know? I don't care. It was the film that I worked on that I was actually able to comfortably and beautifully say goodbye to my father."
Will’s ex-wife Sheree Fletcher, whom the actor was married to from 1992 to 1995, posted a tribute to her former father-in-law on Instagram.
“We’re gonna miss you Daddio! You lived & played by your own rules…you truly were 1 of a kind!,” Fletcher writes. “You instilled discipline, and a work ethic that has created a legacy in your honor!”
She included a photo (see below) of Will and his father alongside her son with the actor, Trey, now 23.
“Dad was tough but not tyrannical,” Smith reportedly once told Essence.
“He kept me in line. He’d get this look that said, ‘One more step, Will, and it’ll get ugly.’ He’s a steady and positive figure in my life. I look at my father and how he was able to keep four kids fed and clothed and still managed to find time to spend with us."
There's even a video where Will talks about how his father taught him the invaluable lesson of never giving up.
"My father was an electrician and refrigerator man. We installed big freezer cases and all the lights in supermarkets. We did that every summer. But for some reason, one summer my father said he needed a new wall on front of his shop. So he tore down a 16-foot high and 30-foot wide wall and me and my brother would have to dig a 6 foot deep hole in the ground for the foundation. But it was just myself and my little brother. So every day after school for a year we worked on that wall. A a year and a half later, we laid the final brick. And my father stood back and my father looked at the wall and looked at me and my brother and said, 'Now don't you never tell me that you can't do something.'"
Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of Will Smith. The actor has yet to make a formal announcement.
