Will Smith and Jaden Smith. Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
Will Smith couldn’t resist trolling his son Jaden Smith while celebrating his birthday.
“Happy Birthday, J-Diggy. It’s crazy that you’re 25?!?! When I was 25 I had a 2 yr. old,” the King Richard star, 54, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, July 8. “I’m just sayin’… Wha’s up? What you doin’ over there?”
Will first became a parent in 1992, welcoming son Trey Smith with then-wife Sheree Zampino. The twosome eventually separated three years later before Will moved on with Jada Pinkett Smith, whom he wed in 1997. After the Oscar winner’s union with the Red Table Talk host, he continued to coparent Trey with Zampino, 55.
“When Will and Jada got together, Jada wasn’t a mom,” Zampino — who is currently a “friend” on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills — exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2022. “So, she wasn’t experienced, she didn’t have a certain understanding. … So, that sometimes caused a little friction.”
According to Zampino, Pinkett Smith, 51, ultimately found her footing as a stepmother and has been “amazing” to Trey.
“In order for him to be calling her mom, he’s comfortable. And he’s probably also trying to fit into that family dynamic,” Zampino confessed to Us, noting Trey also refers to Pinkett Smith as his mom. “So, let him go through his process, let him do that. Doesn’t take anything away from me. I’m very secure in my role in his life. I’m secure with being his mom. Nobody can undermine that.”
Trey Smith, Willow Smith, Jaden Smith, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Will and Pinkett Smith eventually went on to welcome two kids of their own — son Jaden and daughter Willow — in 1998 and 2000, respectively.
“My style of parenting is very similar to that of my parents, minus the concept of ownership,” Will told Haute Living in a 2013 interview. “We respect our children the way we would respect any other person. Things like cleaning up their room. You would never tell a full-grown adult to clean their room, so we don’t tell our kids to clean their rooms.”
Jaden even asked to move out of the house and become legally emancipated when he was 15 years old in 2013.
“I remember this day specifically. It’s probably one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life,” Pinkett Smith recalled during a June 2018 episode of Red Table Talk. “You got to a point where you told me straight up, you were like, ‘Mom, I have to leave here to live my life.’ I remember thinking to myself, as devastated as I was, I was like, ‘He’s right. The time is now.’ … I told Will when Jaden was smaller, I said, ‘We’ll be lucky to keep him in the house till he’s 16’ because he was so mature.”
Jaden ultimately decided against pursuing emancipation, telling Ellen DeGeneres in May 2013 that he is “not going anywhere.”
