From being the first male-identifying Louis Vuitton model to wear a dress to bizarre death
hoaxes, Jaden Smith has already shaped an eclectic career for himself by age twenty-four.
A lot of celebrities don't hit the public consciousness until they get older and do
something of note, but when you're the first son of two super-famous celebrities, people
know about you even before you're born.
Jaden Smith's birth on July 8, 1998 was marked in People, which noted that another celebrity
baby arrived that same exact day: "Stranger Things" star Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan
Hawke and Uma Thurman.
The magazine also noted that Jaden's famous parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith,
had just married on New Years, months before Jaden was born.
Years later, on an episode of her Facebook Watch talk show "Red Table Talk," Jada recalled
being able to sense Jaden's impending arrival much earlier than most parents, saying:
"I knew the moment after the act that I was pregnant."
She went on to say that Will didn't believe her.
Will, a guest on that episode of the show, agreed, remembering how he'd told her at the time:
"I was like 'Babe, I think scientifically, you're not pregnant.'"
It wasn't long before Jaden joined his parents on the red carpet, sitting comfortably on
Jada's hip in a fringed leather outfit at the premiere of Will's 1999 film "Wild Wild West".
Though the appearance isn't even marked on his IMDb profile, Jaden appeared on an episode
of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" alongside his parents, aged just three years old.
Grinning at his son, who immediately reached for his father to pick him up.:
"Yeah, he said 'I want to come do the movie with you, Daddy!'"
Listening to his dad do an impression of his voice, little Jaden ran his fingers through
his curly hair repeatedly, smiling at the crowd bashfully.
The elder Smiths were there to promote their appearance in the Oscar-nominated Michael
Mann film "Ali," in which Will played the legendary boxer Muhammed Ali and Jada portrayed
Sonji Roi, the boxer's ex-wife.
Ali himself also joined Oprah's couch to talk about the film on the episode, but at that
point, Jaden was backstage once more.
As his parents expressed when he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Jaden caught
the acting bug early.
In his first ever role, he starred alongside his father in 2006's "The Pursuit of Happyness".
The film follows a homeless man who is learning to pull himself up by his bootstraps – all
while trying to take care of his young son.
Jaden starred as the son of Will's character, who endeavors to live a good life despite
the financial circumstances keeping him down.
The elder Smith wrote in his memoir "Will" that the casting almost didn't happen because
the studio was worried about perceptions of nepotism.
As a result, Jaden had to audition nine times for the part.
Will wrote:
"Audition after audition, in all of his innocent, 6-year-old glory, he proved himself the right
actor for the role."
"Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something.
Not even me."
Ultimately, Jaden won an MTV Movie Award for best breakthrough performance; Will, meanwhile,
was nominated for an Oscar.
When the two returned to "The Oprah Winfrey Show," they talked about Jaden's impressive
ability to cry on cue.
The young star had some simple words of advice to explain his acting process:
"I just thought of sad things."
While promoting "The Pursuit of Happyness" in 2006, Jaden appeared on the "Today" show.
The young actor told Matt Lauer that he wanted to appear on "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,"
Disney Channel's hit show starring Dylan and Cole Sprouse.
According to AllHeadlineNews, someone at Disney reportedly saw the interview, made a few calls,
and a few years later, Smith's dream came true.
He acted in an episode of "The Suite Life" called "Romancing the Phone" in 2008, playing
the son of a cruise ship captain.
The character, Travis, allowed Smith to show off a special skill he had been developing:
his martial arts abilities.
Travis ends up giving the twins karate lessons – which, of course, would end up being a
telling precursor to one of his next starring roles.
A couple of years after starring alongside his father in "The Pursuit of Happyness,"
Jaden returned to the big screen in a remake of "Karate Kid."
Smith told Today:
"My dad had the idea of remaking it.
He's the one who was like, 'We need to make this movie.'"
Instead of tagging along with his dad, Smith starred alongside another industry vet: Jackie Chan.
Despite the film's name, in this version of the story, Smith's character learns kung fu
from the martial arts legend.
Smith talked proudly about all the training he had done for the role, telling Emanuel
Levy that he wanted to "stay buff" after the film.
He said:
"If Taylor Lautner ever needs a stunt double, I'm ready for action."
Smith's role in the film was well-received.
He was nominated for various awards for his performance, including a Teen Choice Award,
a People's Choice Award, and an NAACP Image Award; ultimately, the kung fu kid picked
up a trophy from the Young Artist Awards.
The same year he starred in the "Karate Kid" remake, Jaden was featured on Justin Bieber's
hit single "Never Say Never," which they performed together at the Jingle Ball.
The song was wildly popular, appeared on the "Karate Kid" soundtrack, and provided the
title for Biebs' 2011 concert film.
Bieber told Access Hollywood's Billy Bush that the whole Smith family was very supportive,
and that Will Smith had taken an interest in helping the floppy-haired teen heartthrob
break into the film industry.
He said:
"The Smith family's been really amazing to me and really supportive in everything I'm doing.
Their family's just really nice and really good people."
While Bieber and Will explored a possible crossover into film acting, Jaden himself
launched a music career on the back of appearing in Bieber's song.
He released a number of mixtapes in the successive years, culminating in a debut album called
"SYRE" in 2017.
He told Complex that he viewed music, acting, and various other efforts as all expressions
of the same goal, saying:
"Really, it's all for the betterment of humanity at the end of the day.
We're just trying to get to that one world vision, where everybody can be in a world
where there aren't 16,000 children dying of malnutrition every day.
That's really what I want to accomplish, and that's why I'm doing this."
Father and son reunited on screen when Jaden and Will Smith starred together in M. Night
Shyamalan's "After Earth," a 2013 sci-fi epic about a team of father-son astronauts who
crash-land on a post-apocalyptic planet, which turns out to be Earth itself.
They gave a number of strange interviews to promote the project, dancing around the Scientology
implications of the film's storyline.
Will told Vulture:
"We are students of world religion."
"After Earth" did not go well for the father-son pair.
Critics focused on the same aspect of nepotism the studio had worried about with "The Pursuit
of Happyness," and the film also coincided with a narrative surrounding a significant
downturn in Shyamalan's public perception.
"How about we make everyone think that terrorists attacked us, but really, we were all already dead."
"Get him out of here."
Will later wrote in his memoir that he regretted the whole thing and especially felt sorry
for his son.
He said:
"Jaden took the hit.
Fans and the press were absolutely vicious; they said and printed things about Jaden that
I refuse to repeat.
Jaden had faithfully done everything that I'd instructed him to do, and I had coached
him into the worst public mauling he'd ever experienced."
Though the pair seem to have made up, at the time things were very tense in the Smith household;
Will recalled that, after "After Earth" flopped, Jaden looked into what it would take to be
emancipated from his family.
Ultimately, he decided against it, but it would be years before Jaden acted in a film again.
Not content to simply be an actor and rapper, Jaden spent some time in his teens making
his mark as a fashion icon.
In 2015, he posted a photo of himself on Instagram wearing what appears to be a knee-length dress;
he captioned it:
"Went To TopShop To Buy Some Girl Clothes, I Mean 'Clothes.'"
A few months later, he attended prom with fellow actor Amandla Stenberg, wearing an
ankle-length dress to the dance.
And he kicked off the following year by posing in a skirt for a Louis Vuitton ad, becoming
the first male-identifying model to promote LV's womenswear line.
Though his father was reportedly unhappy with his son's sartorial selections, Jaden ultimately
wore skirts repeatedly that whole year as a statement about bullying.
He told Nylon:
"​​In five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won't get beat up and
kids won't get mad at him.
I'm taking the brunt of it so that later on, my kids and the next generations of kids will
all think that certain things are normal that weren't expected before my time."
After spending a few years away from acting, he lent his talents to a pair of Netflix projects.
In Baz Luhrman's 2016 show "The Get Down," he played Dizzee, a graffiti artist, and the
following year, he brought his vocal talent to an anime series called "Neo Yokio," in
which he played the main character, Kaz.
The animated show revolves around a futuristic city where magicians and demons battle in
the streets, with Kaz being one of the former.
Smith told GQ:
"I really loved it, and I loved all the fashion references because I feel like that's more
necessary in entertainment because it really is entertaining."
"Do you really think my personal brand can handle these clothes?"
"Your personal brand depends on these clothes."
Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, who created the cartoon, agreed with his star
that the show's fashion was an integral part of the storyline.
He said:
"There's going to be artificial intelligence in the future, so much about our life is going
to change, and yet there probably still will be Nike, and Polo.
And 1,000 years in the future I think you're going to still have people wearing suits and
ties, and I think that's interesting."
"Avant-garde" Met Gala appearance
Smith grew out his locs over the course of several years, usually wearing them high on
his head.
In 2017, he prepared to film a movie called "Life in a Year" opposite supermodel Cara Delevingne.
That unfortunately meant the locs had to go, and his dad did the honors.
Will wrote on Facebook, sharing snaps of himself, his son, and a fistful of hair:
"Maybe I should've used scissors?!"
Several weeks later, however, the locs made an unexpected return when Jaden carried the
handful of hair down the red carpet as an accessory at the Met Gala, baring a mouth
full of matching gold teeth.
Though many viewers of the carpet were confused, Jaden told Vogue's Andre Leon Talley that
his style vibe is, quote, "interesting and sexy at the same time in my own way" and that
his inspiration for the outfit had been "more of a Dracula look, kind of Matrix vibe."
Unprompted, he explained the hair, telling the bemused correspondent:
"Since I couldn't bring my sister as a date, I brought my old hair."
The legendary tastemaker laughed and, to Jaden's credit, declared the accessory as "avant-garde."
After taking five years off from acting in theatrically released films, Smith finally
returned to the big screen in 2018's "Skate Kitchen," a movie about a group of girls who
ride skateboards in New York City.
Smith was one of the only actors in the film with experience, with the titular Skate Kitchen
crew essentially playing versions of themselves.
In the movie, Smith plays a red-haired skate photographer named Devon who takes up with
the Skate Kitchen girls, and falls in love with their leader.
"Well, you're the only girl I've ever brought up here."
"Really?"
Although he had made his career as a child star, he told i-D that the film showed off
how much he'd grown up.
He said:
"I would say that this is my first young adult role, where there is cursing, and, you know,
just more mature things happening in this film that young adults are doing right now."
Furthermore, the multi-hyphenate offered advice to other young people trying to figure out
where they belong in the world, saying:
"Make art, make awesome things — just create, because that will really show you different
sides of yourself."
In addition to his acting, modeling, fashion-designing, and rapping gigs, Smith found the time to
give some attention to charities in the past few years.
He founded a food truck called I Love You, which gave out free vegan food to people experiencing homelessness.
The project was launched the day before his 21st birthday.
In early 2020, the food truck gave out food in Skid Row, a notoriously destitute area
of downtown Los Angeles.
According to LiveKindly, the truck's food was provided by Impossible Foods, and Smith's
own water brand JUST Water was given out as well.
The following year, Smith announced in Variety that he planned to open a physical restaurant location.
People experiencing homelessness will still be able to eat without paying, but Smith clarified:
"If you're not homeless, not only do you have to pay, but you have to pay for more than
the food's worth so that you can pay for the person behind you."
The Smith family has been public about their worries when it comes to Jaden's weight and
actually held an intervention in 2019 when they felt like he was malnourished due to
his vegan and vegetarian diets.
Jada explained on "Red Table Talk that September:
"We realized he wasn't getting enough protein.
He was wasting away."
Will recalled that they were genuinely scared for him, adding:
"There was even a little grayness to his skin."
Jaden objected to them calling him a vegan, clarifying that he's vegetarian, but admitted
that he probably wasn't eating enough and sometimes didn't care enough to have more
than one big meal.
In 2021, however, Jaden was happy to report that the intervention paid off and he had
gained 10 pounds.
He said on "Red Table Talk two years later:
"That was a long way from where I was when I was at Coachella, where I just was just,
like, bones."
Reflecting on how he looked at the 2019 festival, he pointed out that he had been proud of his
lean appearance at the time, saying:
"I thought I was so tight!"
He also explained how he was able to get a more well-rounded diet thanks to a team of
health professionals.
"I was able to work with the doctors and really get my vitamins…"
Jaden Smith has kept his love life a mystery in recent years.
Despite never making any definitive statements about his sexuality, he has claimed on multiple
occasions that rapper Tyler, the Creator is his boyfriend, sparking confusion from fans.
According to ET, Smith stated at the rapper's Camp Flog Gnaw music festival in 2018:
"I just wanna say Tyler, the Creator is the best friend in the world.
And I love him so f—--- much.
And I wanna tell you guys something, I wanna tell you, Tyler doesn't wanna say, but Tyler
is my mother f—---- boyfriend."
Smith later celebrated Tyler's Grammy win for his album "Igor" in 2020 by tweeting:
"My Boyfriend Just Won A Grammy."
Rumors later swirled around Smith and Cara Delevingne when pictures of them spending
Valentine's Day together were published in 2021.
He has also been linked to model Sab Zada after the pair were first spotted having dinner
together in 2020 and then photographed at Disneyland and Coachella.
And after his father's controversial slap at the Oscars in 2022, an inside source told
Us Weekly that Zada had been a key source of support during the backlash that ensued.
The anonymous source insisted:
"They're very much in love and talk about everything.
He has shared his feelings about his father's difficult situation with her and she has been
nothing but supportive and loving and there for him."
Smith has been the target of online trolling over the years over his acting, his gender-fluid
clothes, and his unusual tweets.
And he's been the victim of one particular hoax multiple times: social media accounts
spread a rumor that he is dead and post fake headlines about his tragic passing.
In 2022, for example, people started claiming that Smith had died in a car crash.
Fans began flooding Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok with tributes to the actor and singer,
while others started questioning where the speculation had come from.
Smith didn't shoot down these rumors with an indignant post proving that he was alive,
however, choosing to instead tweet something characteristically confusing.
Seemingly addressing the death rumors claiming that he hadn't been seen in a while, he wrote
on Twitter just the word "Invisible."
Unfortunately, a similar hoax resurfaced in January 2023, which was swiftly debunked by Snopes.
When Willow Smith performed at Coachella 2023, she decided to bring out her big brother as
a surprise for the crowd.
The musician initially acted as if she was having a conversation with someone who wasn't
on stage, before Jaden shocked the audience by coming out and joining her for their song
"Summertime in Paris."
He wore a shirt with the slogan "Willow's brother" and made it clear just how proud
he was of his little sister and her success by delivering an impassioned speech where
he announced how much he looked up to Willow as a person and an artist.
He told the crowd:
"It brings tears to my eyes as your brother to see you do this.
I love you so much.
I'm so inspired by you, I'm so inspired and happy for what you're doing in the world and
the amount of people's lives you're changing with the music that you're making."