SCREEN
Adieu to giant of French cinema Jean-Luc Godard
Page 54 →
ELEVEN YEARS AGO, AGED JUST 10 AND A HALF, WILLOW SMITH was done with being famous. Off the back of her breakout hit, Whip My Hair, a Rihanna-esque banger that played on repeat across playgrounds and dancefloors for weeks, she had landed a prestigious slot supporting Justin Bieber on tour. The whole family flew out for her UK opening night in Birmingham on 4 March 2011. She slayed that night, and the next, and the next. But when the lights went up at the end of the last European gig, she came off stage and declared: “I’m finished, Daddy. I’m ready to go home.”
Daddy – also known as Will Smith – told her that, no, she wasn’t done, because she had signed on for a slew of dates in Australia. End of discussion – or so he thought, he wrote in his 2021 memoir, until a few mornings later, when “Willow came skipping into the kitchen for breakfast. ‘Good morning, Daddy,’ she said joyfully, as she bounced to the refrigerator. My jaw nearly dislocated, dislodged back and forth?”
