Growing up is hard to do — even for the children of A-list celebs.
Willow Smith is shedding more light on the time in her life when she believed that inflicting harm on herself would make her pain go away, and how she eventually realized her body was worth so much more.
Like most teens, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s daughter struggled with dark periods of not liking where her life was headed. For the starlet, these struggles came when she was 10 and experienced sudden fame from the release of her 2010 hit single Whip My Hair.
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While Jaden Smith‘s sister initially thought the life of the singer was what she always wanted, discovering the expectations that came with such a career made her have second thoughts. She explained to People:
“I was super young, and I had a dream, but all I really wanted to do was sing and I didn’t equate that with all the business and the stress that ended up coming with it… I was just like, ‘Whoa, this is not the life that I want’.”
It wasn’t long before the now-18-year-old made some life changes — most notably, shaving her head in 2012: an act of liberation she says “was the perfect way to rebel” from her hair-whipping public image.
But shaving her head didn’t solve the pain she was battling internally. By her early teens, the performer began cutting herself as a way to provide “a physical release of all the intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.”
Thanks to reading up on science and spirituality, Willow eventually realized inflicting harm on herself was “pointless,” and that she and her body deserved much better. She continued:
“I was like, ‘This is pointless — my body is a temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I had learned to see myself as worthy.”
Way to rise above, girl.
Unfortunately, many teens develop the same self-injury habits. A 2018 study showed that up to 30% of teenage girls in some parts of the U.S. say they have intentionally injured themselves without aiming to commit suicide.
Related: Jada Talks ‘Redefining’ Her Relationship With Will Smith!
The study, originally reported by The New York Times, found that about one in four adolescent girls deliberately harmed herself in the previous year, usually by cutting or burning, while about one in ten boys were found to do the same.
Willow, for her part, first revealed her history of cutting on Red Table Talk — much to her mother’s surprise. Jada previously admitted she didn’t know about Willow’s self-harming past until the teen opened up about it on that episode. The Girls Trip star said she was “shocked” but “so proud of her in that moment.”
If you or anyone you know is struggling with self-injury, you can reach the Self Harm Hotline by texting CONNECT to 741741 from anywhere in the USA, anytime, about any type of crisis.
[Image via FayesVision/WENN]
