Jaden Smith Was Emancipated From His Parents Will And Jada Pinkett-Smith At 15 For This Reason

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Last year, Will Smith revealed that his son Jaden Smith was emancipated at 15. However, several factors led the artist to make the big step.

RELATED STORIES: Jaden Smith Reportedly Asked For Emancipation At Age 15 After “After Earth” Flopped In The Box Office

Jaden Smith asked for emancipation after a major film he starred in didn’t perform well at the box office.

At 15, Jaden starred alongside his dad in the 2013 film After Earth, which became a critical and commercial failure. In his memoir, Will Smith revealed his son immediately asked for emancipation due to the public backlash he faced from the film’s underperformance. “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,” he wrote in the excerpt.

“He says, ‘Dad, I want to be emancipated.’ I know if we do this, he can be an emancipated minor because he really wants to have his own place, like ‘Ooh. That’s the backlash. On the other side, if kids just want to have command of their lives, I understand”

Smith also said that Jaden was a child who explained his every move, whether right or wrong.

“From the time Jaden was five or six, we would sit him down, and all he has to do is be able to explain why what he did was the right thing for his life. I think it’s a much more difficult question to ask someone – ‘Why was that right?’ – than to try to show them why it was wrong. Nobody wants to be wrong, all parts of yourself fight like crazy to not be wrong. So I’ll say to Jaden, ‘Why was that the right thing to do for your life?’ and if he can explain why kicking his sister in the chest was the right thing to do, we can see to it that he understands that it wasn’t so smart,”

His sister, Willow Smith, also disliked being in the spotlight for too long after releasing her hit song ‘Whip My Hair’ and shaved her head after Will Smith reportedly wanted her to continue a tour back in 2010.

The film’s box office bomb may have led to Jaden Smith’s music career.

The then-15-year-old started focusing on his music career and stopped acting for a while. A year prior, he released his first mixtape, Cool Cafe. Due to his emancipation most likely gave him the ability to pick and choose whatever projects he wanted to work on without permission from his parents. He released his debut album, Syre, in 2017.

“I’m trying to take popular culture and mix it all together and give something new to the world.”

A year after his debut album release, Jaden returned to appear in the film Skate Kitchen and said he took on the role because it was similar to his true personality. Since then, Jaden has also worked on other projects such as Netflix’s The Get Down and featured on other artists’ album tracks.

 

 

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