Willow Smith self-harmed at the height of her fame as a child.
The 17-year-old singer – who is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith – rose to fame at just 10 years old when she released the hit single ‘Whip My Hair’ in 2010, but she has now admitted the pressure she was under after stepping into the spotlight caused to her to start cutting her wrists.
She said: "It was after that whole ‘Whip My Hair’ thing and I had just stopped doing singing lessons and I was kind of just in this grey area of, ‘Who am I? Do I have a purpose? Is there anything I can do besides this?’
"After the tour and the promotion and all of that, they wanted me to finish my album. And I was like, I’m not gonna do that. And after all of that kinda settled down and it was like a kind of lull, I was just listening to a lot of dark music. It was just so crazy and I was plunged into this black hole, and I was cutting myself."
Willow made the confession whilst appearing on her mother’s ‘Red Table Talk’ series, and the ‘Girls Trip’ actress was shocked by the news.
Jada – who also has 19-year-old son Jaden with Will – said: "What? When were you cutting yourself? I didn’t see that part. Cutting yourself where?"
To which Willow responded: "On my wrist. I mean, you can’t even see it but there’s still a little something there. But like, totally lost my sanity for a moment there. I never talk about it because it was such a short weird point in my life. But you have to pull yourself out of it."
The young star’s confession comes after she previously dubbed growing up in the spotlight as "absolutely terrible".
She said: "I’m going to be completely and utterly honest, it’s absolutely terrible.
"Growing up and trying to figure out your life … while people feel like they have some sort of entitlement to know what’s going on, is absolutely, excruciatingly terrible – and the only way to get over it, is to go into it.
"You can’t change your face. You can’t change your parents. You can’t change any of those things.
"When you’re born into it, there are two choices that you have: I’m either going to try to go into it completely and help from the inside, or no one is going to know where I am and I’m really going to take myself completely out of the eye of society.
"There’s really no in between."
Willow Smith self-harmed after hit single
