Jaden Smith

• 1. Introduction

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  Jaden Smith asked for an unusual present on his 15th birthday: a legal ruling of emancipation. His father, Will Smith, later told the media what lay behind it. Jaden's main motive was to set up a residence of his own.

  The request says a good deal about the household he grew up in. Jaden Smith is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and actor, and the son of two famous performers. Their surname opened doors for him before he could choose which ones to walk through.

  That raises a harder question. What does a person build when the world already knows his name? How does a child actor become a recording artist on his own terms? And why would he step away from films at the moment they were calling?

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• 2. Growing Up Smith

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  Jaden Christopher Syre Smith was born on the 8th of July 1998 in Malibu, California. His parents are the actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. He has an older half-brother, Trey Smith, and a younger sister, Willow Smith.

  New Village Leadership Academy was his first school. After that, his parents taught him at home. He has spoken at length about how fame, and his family's celebrity status, kept him from having a normal childhood. He took up skateboarding.

  Will Smith has described a household with very little punishment. In his words, "We generally don't believe in punishment." From the time Jaden was five or six, he would be sat down and asked to explain why his action was right for his life.

  On The Ellen DeGeneres Show on the 15th of May 2013, Jaden joked about the arrangement. He said everything at his father's house is free, so he expected to stay another 20 or 30 years. His father's rule, he said, was that he could get his own house once he made a movie bigger than one of Will's.

  Project Zambi, which works with the toy company Hasbro, helps Zambian children orphaned by AIDS. Jaden and his siblings served as its youth ambassadors.

  The joke about staying for decades did not hold. In June 2017, at the age of 19, Jaden moved out of his parents' house and into a $4 million home in Hidden Hills, California.

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• 3. Child Star

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  The Pursuit of Happyness, released in 2006, gave Smith his major role. He played Christopher, the son of Chris Gardner, a character played by his real father. The performance won him the Breakthrough Performance Award at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards.

  In 2008 he played Jacob in The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Scott Derrickson. The film remade a 1951 classic of the same name. Keanu Reeves co-starred.

  The Karate Kid arrived in 2010 as a remake of the 1984 film, with Jackie Chan beside him. Smith played Dre Parker. The role brought him a BET Award and a Young Artist Award.

  In May 2013, Will and Jaden Smith starred together as father and son in After Earth. Jaden played Kitai Raige. The film was their second shared screen project after the one that launched his career.

  The following year brought a sequel announcement. Karate Kid 2 would reunite him with Jackie Chan, directed by Breck Eisner and written by Zak Penn. James Lassiter and Will Smith were set to produce it.

  In April 2014, Smith was also cast in The Good Lord Bird, adapted from James McBride's 2013 novel of the same name. His character, Henry Shackleford, is a young slave in the Kansas Territory in 1857. Henry's path crosses that of the abolitionist John Brown.

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• 4. Stepping Away

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  Cool Tape Vol. 2 was the mixtape that changed his schedule. After it came out, Smith stopped acting to concentrate on music. He later explained his reasoning this way: "The kinds of roles I was being offered weren't exactly what I was looking for, nothing felt really necessary that I needed to be in until this came along".

  The project that finally felt necessary was The Get Down, a Netflix series. He played Marcus "Dizzee" Kipling in a recurring role that began in 2016. He then voiced Kaz Kaan, the main character of the Netflix anime Neo Yokio. He also appeared as himself in the television drama Nashville.

  Film came back in February 2018, when a movie based on skateboarding was announced. Crystal Moselle directed it, and it was called Skate Kitchen. Its first official trailer, with Smith as the main character, arrived on the 21st of June 2018. The film was released on the 10th of August 2018, after screening at the Sundance Film Festival.

  In 2020 he starred opposite Cara Delevingne in the romantic drama Life in a Year. Reviews were positive.

  Smaller screen credits followed. In 2022 he voiced a character named Myron in The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.

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• 5. The Syre Years

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  Justin Bieber's 2010 single "Never Say Never" was Smith's first appearance on a record, as a guest performer. The song was released for the soundtrack that accompanied The Karate Kid. It peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Recording Industry Association of America certified it five times platinum.

  The Cool Cafe, his debut mixtape, came out on the 1st of October 2012. Its sequel, CTV2, followed on the 8th of November 2014.

  That same year he began work on a debut studio album. It took three years. He signed with Roc Nation and Interscope Records to release it.

  In December 2016 he announced the title, Syre. The lead single, "Fallen", had been released on the 5th of December 2016. Three more singles followed: "Batman", "Watch Me" and "Falcon".

  Syre was released on the 17th of November 2017 and debuted at number 24 on the US Billboard 200. "Icon" came out as a single the same day. It reached number 3 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.

  Many of the album's songs were inspired by Sarah Snyder, whom Smith dated from 2015 to 2017.

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• 6. Erys and the Road

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  On the 14th of December 2017, Smith announced that his next project would be titled Erys. Another project, Syre: The Electric Album, was teased on Twitter before it appeared. Leading up to it, he released the single "Ghost", featuring Christian Rich.

  The Electric Album is a guitar-centric rework of Syre. Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band shaped its sound. Smith released it exclusively on Instagram on the 8th of July 2018, his 20th birthday. It reached streaming platforms four days later.

  Erys itself arrived on the 5th of July 2019 and debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard 200.

  On the 30th of July 2018, Smith was announced as an opener on J. Cole's KOD Tour, alongside Young Thug and EarthGang. On the 2nd of August, he played Lollapalooza for the first time. That year he also headlined the Vision Tour: A North American Journey.

  Kid Cudi, one of Smith's influences, said he wanted to make an album with him. Smith backed the idea in an interview on the 21st of August 2018. His other influences include Kanye West, Kurt Cobain and Tycho.

  His father is an influence too, though not a template for success. Jaden put it this way: "He started in music and transitioned to movies. I started with movies, and then I transitioned into making music". He called his father a blueprint for being a good person.

  In 2019 he co-headlined the Willow & Erys Tour with his sister Willow. He also supported Post Malone and Tyler, the Creator on their tours that year.

  Business changed behind the scenes in March 2019. Will Smith's company Westbrook Entertainment, which had managed Jaden, was acquired by the established firm Three Six Zero.

  On the 24th of July 2020, Smith released "Cabin Fever", the first single from CTV3: Cool Tape Vol. 3. He described the album as completing the trilogy of the earlier Cool tapes, and "also kinda completing the trilogies of Syre and Erys at the same time". It peaked at number 44 on the Billboard 200. It includes "Falling for You", a collaboration with his friend Justin Bieber.

  He released the single "Bye" on the 21st of June 2021. On the 27th of August 2021, he put out CTV3: Day Tripper's Edition on all streaming platforms.

  In 2022, Smith was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year as a featured artist on Bieber's album Justice. That same year he joined Bieber's Justice World Tour as a supporting act. In 2024, he did the same on Kid Cudi's Insano World Tour.

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• 7. Beyond the Studio

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  GQ described Smith in 2018 as "in a league of his own" when it came to fashion. He names three icons: Tyler, the Creator, Batman and Poseidon. Tyler, he says, introduced him to the brand Supreme.

  Batman's dark, gothic scenery shaped the clothing Smith makes under his brand MSFTSrep. It also shaped what he wears himself. He put on Batman protective armor for his prom, and again for the wedding of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

  In May 2013, he teamed up with a Korean designer named Choi Bum Suk. Together they opened a pop-up store selling clothes marked with their joint logos.

  In 2016, Smith modeled a Louis Vuitton womenswear campaign while wearing a skirt. He was the first male model to do so for the house. He said the choice was meant to combat bullying: "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." He kept wearing womenswear for the rest of 2016.

  That year he also wore a black skirt, blue nail polish and a flower in his hair for a Vogue Korea editorial. In 2018, he created a denim line with the fashion brand G-Star.

  In September 2025, Smith was named Creative Director of Christian Louboutin, the brand's first male creative director. He is tasked with shaping four collections a year across men's shoes, leather goods and accessories.

  A very different business has held his name since he was 12 years old. Smith is a partner in the spring water company Just Water. It aims to create a water filtration system that anyone can afford, for use in disadvantaged regions and nations. It also seeks to help develop water infrastructure and environmentally friendly building methods, including a novel design of drywall.

  Just Water officially launched in the UK on the 27th of August 2018.

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• 8. Opinions and Rumors

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  In 2013, Smith criticized traditional education and advised people to drop out of school. Of teenagers in public school, he said: "Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty." He also subscribes to, and tweets about, several conspiracy theories, including the Illuminati and chemtrails.

  Smith is a vegetarian. In 2019 he started a mobile restaurant serving free vegan dinners to people experiencing homelessness, while other customers pay.

  In September 2019, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith said on Red Table Talk that they had staged an "intervention". Jaden had looked visibly underweight and "drained". He said on the same episode that he was eating only one or two meals a day. A physician on the program attributed his nutritional deficiencies to a sensitive stomach. He was later diagnosed with lactose intolerance and celiac disease, and he eventually went back to vegetarianism.

  Beginning in November 2018, Smith claimed that the rapper Tyler, the Creator was his boyfriend. Tyler denied it. On the song "NOIZE", from Erys in 2019, Tyler revealed while rapping that the relationship claims had been sarcastic.

  Smith has also been called a non-binary icon for challenging traditional gender roles. He is often seen in gender-fluid clothing, including dresses and high-heeled shoes. He has said: "If I Wanna Wear A Dress, Then I Will, And That Will Set The New Wave..."

  In 2023, Facebook posts and YouTube videos claimed that Smith had died. Some posts on other platforms even said Will Smith had publicly announced his son's death. It was an online hoax.

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