Will Smith emotionally recalls ‘terrible’ night with son: ‘I fell to my knees’

Will Smith has been a father for 31 years – but he will always remember the “terrible” moment he became a father for the first time.

The 56-year-old shares his eldest son Trey, 31, with his first wife Sheree Zampino and is also father to Jaden, 26, and Willow, 23, whom he shares with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

On Thursday, Will appeared on “An Evening with Will Smith” at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and discussed his 1997 song “Just the Two of Us,” which he wrote during “probably one of the most terrible times of my life.”

“That’s when my son…Trey was born,” Will, who was 24 at the time, told the audience.

He became tearful and added: “It’s crazy, but you think I can’t tell you what it was like to bring the child home that first night and realize I was responsible for him.”

“He’s cool now, thank God – he’s 32 this year.”

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Will went on to explain that parenthood was “one of the first things, the first real things in my life, that really shook me to my core.”

Will emotionally recalled the night he brought Trey home from the hospital, saying, “I remember that first night. I can’t even talk about it.”

“Because I was talking so crazy about my father and all the things my father didn’t do. And then I thought, ‘Oh no, now it’s my turn.’

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“And I just fell to my knees and made one of the hardest promises ever made to a human being. That I would do anything to be a good dad to you.”

Wiping away tears, Will revealed that that was the night he wrote “Just the Two of Us.”

Sharing more details about Trey’s birth, Will said: “His mom had a ruptured water, Sheree’s water had ruptured and I had just opened my TV. I was trying to set up my TV and there was a thousand-page manual for my TV.”

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“It was a thousand pages. It was so thick and multilingual, and it took me a thousand pages of information to set up this TV.”

He added: “I remember bringing him home and putting him in the crib… Cedas-Sinai sent me home with a baby and not even a brochure.”

Will and Trey became estranged following his divorce from Sheree, with Will previously admitting that his marriage to Jada and the birth of their children had an “impact” on his firstborn.

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“Going through a divorce and then starting another family had an impact on Trey that we’re still healing and overcoming,” he said on his Facebook Watch show “Will’s Bucket List” in 2019.

“There has really been enough wisdom and emotional development over the last two years to lovingly address the issues. We throw ourselves into creating a divine, loving friendship.”

In 2018, Will revealed that Trey felt “betrayed and abandoned” by him after he and Sheree split.

“It wasn’t always like this between Trey and I,” he captioned a sweet video of the couple on Instagram.

“After my divorce from his mother, we fought for YEARS. He felt betrayed and abandoned. It is a great blessing to be able to rebuild a loving relationship with my beautiful son! @treysmith0011.”