Will

Will is a celebrity memoir written by Will Smith with Mark Manson. It was published in 2021. The memoir details Smith’s rise through the hip-hop world and his eventual move to film and television. As he describes his rise to fame and his life as a celebrity, Smith tells the story of his family and relationships. The memoir is a mix of autobiography, hip-hop history, and analysis.

This guide refers to the 2021 Penguin Kindle version of the memoir.

Content Warning: The memoir and this study guide contain references to alcohol use and abuse, drug use, suicidal ideation, and domestic abuse. The memoir also includes numerous uses of curse words and racist language including the n-word.

Summary

Will Smith opens his memoir with a story about his childhood. His father, Daddio, wants a new wall in his shop, and he tasks Smith and Smith’s younger brother with building it. It takes the boys almost a year of working every day to complete the project. Smith credits this incident with teaching him numerous life lessons, including the importance of perseverance and focusing on the task in front of you. This story is foundational to who Smith eventually becomes, and he refers back to this anecdote throughout his memoir.

Another foundational incident in Smith’s childhood occurs when his father knocks his mother, Mom-Mom, unconscious. Smith says that the incident leaves him feeling like a coward for not protecting his mother at that moment, and he struggles with his self-image as a coward from that moment forward. He says he spends the rest of his life apologizing in one way or another to his mother for this moment. 

Besides Daddio and Mom-Mom, Gigi, Smith’s grandmother, plays an important role in his childhood. Gigi is the first one to encourage Smith to perform publicly at a church service, and she looks at him with eyes of such adoration as he performs that he spends much of the rest of his life trying to find that look again. That experience pushes him to pursue first music and then acting.

Smith details numerous romantic relationships in his memoir. The first of these is with a woman named Melanie. He meets her when he is young, and he wants to spend his life with her. He is uninterested in groupies that come to surround him and his friends once they start making it big in the hip-hop world. After Melanie cheats on him, however, their relationship does not last. 

He meets Jada Pinkett briefly on the set of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and in an effort to woo her, he goes to visit her on the set of her TV show. While there, he meets Sheree, whom he eventually marries. He and Sheree have a son, Trey, but their relationship falters, and she files for divorce. During Smith’s separation from Sheree, he starts to see Jada. The two fall deeply in love. Sheree decides she wants to attempt to heal her romantic relationship with Smith, and Jada encourages Smith to make his relationship with Sheree work for the sake of Trey. The relationship ends up failing, and he enters into a relationship with Jada that continues throughout the rest of the memoir. With Jada, he has two children, Jaden and Willow. 

While Smith details the different relationships in his life, he also details the trajectory of his career, focusing on key events in his rise to fame and beyond. Toward the beginning of the memoir, he discusses the world of hip-hop and his rise through its ranks alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff. He then goes on to discuss his time on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as well as the making of his most famous movies, including Independence Day and Ali.

Smith decides that he wants to become the biggest movie star in the world. Eventually, his films’ numbers prove to him that he has accomplished this goal. He finds, however, that his family is not happy despite all he can provide for them. He learns that he needs to listen to those around him and really care about their feelings. He also finds healing for himself as he learns to recognize the beauty within him. The memoir ends with an Afterword entitled “The Jump,” in which Smith celebrates his 50th birthday by bungee jumping from a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. Daddio has died, and Smith has made peace with the man he was. He goes into the next decade of his life facing and overcoming his fear of jumping with all those he loves watching.