Will Smith’s newly released January 2022 interview with David Letterman shows the actor getting testy about the women in his life again as he cautions Letterman to approach discussions about his mother carefully.
During Friday’s release of Season 4 of Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman,” Smith sat down with Letterman and made it clear that his family was a sacred topic of discussion, the New York Post reported.
“Don’t say nothin’ ‘bout my mother, Dave,” Smith said in the interview, according the New York Post. That tone seemed eerily similar to when Smith yelled “keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!” at Chris Rock from his seat at the Academy Awards, as seen in the video of that now infamous moment.
Will Smith: I felt like a ‘coward’ when I didn’t defend my mom from dad’s abuse https://t.co/dOmpvUkOK5 pic.twitter.com/CUVB0TUVbl
— New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2022
Smith’s segment with Letterman was filmed in advance of the Oscars. However, the parallels in Smith’s response to conversations about the women in his life are hard to miss. Almost instantly after Letterman launched a conversation about Will Smith’s mom, Caroline Bright, Smith’s response was to playfully caution Letterman about the sensitive waters he was entering.
The interview continued with Smith diving into discussions about his family dynamics as a child. Smith described a segment of his memoir, stating, “The first line of the first chapter is, ‘I’ve always thought of myself as a coward,” he told Letterman, according to the New York Post. “When I was 9 years old, I saw my father beat up my mother, and I didn’t do anything. And that just left a traumatic impression of myself as a coward.” (RELATED: Will Smith Slap ‘Opened The Floodgates’: Howie Mandel Fears For His Safety After The Attack On Dave Chappelle)
“You can’t protect your family, right?” Smith told Letterman, the New York Post reported. “That’s not real. Protection and safety is an illusion. You have to learn to live with the reality that any moment, anything can be gone in one second.”
Smith’s Oscars slap is still front and center in the minds of many fans. After host Chris Rock took a jab at Smith’s wife, he walked up on stage and slapped Rock across the face.