Will Smith recalls thinking he could kill his father and get away with it: 'I'm one of the best actors in the world'

Will Smith is opening up about his relationship with his late father, revealing he once thought about killing him to "avenge my mother."

The actor in his upcoming book Will writes that his father, who died in 2016, was an alcoholic who abused his mother, recounting an incident where he watched him "punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed" and "spit blood," according to an excerpt published by People. Smith writes that this "defined who I am," and he recalls thinking as a kid that he "would one day avenge my mother" and that when "I was strong enough, when I was no longer a coward, I would slay him."

Smith then recalls a moment later in life when, while his father was suffering from cancer, he thought about the fact that he could "shove him down" the stairs and "easily get away with it," writing, "I'm Will Smith. No one would ever believe I killed my father on purpose. I'm one of the best actors in the world. My 911 call would be Academy Award level," per ET Canada. But Smith adds that "as the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom."

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Smith previously spoke with GQ about his decision to discuss his father's abuse in his book, noting he and his mother never previously talked about it. "It was literally the first time we ever discussed [it]," Smith told GQ. "She had never heard my perception of what happened. So it was really cathartic in a way. It went great. But it was a brutal couple of weeks, man. It was brutal."