Jaden Smith

Early life

Smith was born July 8, 1998 in Malibu, California, the son of Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith. He has an older half-brother, Trey Smith (born 1992), and a younger sister, Willow Smith (born 2000).

Smith and his siblings are youth ambassadors for Project Zambi, which provides assistance in conjunction with Hasbro for Zambian children orphaned by AIDS.

Career

Smith made his major role debut in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness as Christopher, the son of Chris Gardner, Will Smith's character. For his role, Smith won the award for Breakthrough Performance at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards. Smith next appeared as Jacob in the 2008 Scott Derrickson science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the 1951 classic of the same name.

In 2010, along with Jackie Chan, Smith starred in The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 film. In May 2013, Will Smith and Jaden starred together, playing father and son, in After Earth. In 2014, it was announced that Smith will return for the sequel Karate Kid 2 with Jackie Chan. The movie will be directed by Breck Eisner, produced by James Lassiter and Will Smith and written by Zak Penn.

Smith rapped alongside Canadian singer Justin Bieber in the song "Never Say Never." On October 1, 2012, Jaden released his first mixtape, The Cool Cafe.

Smith started his own clothing/lifestyle brand called MSFTSrep. The clothes range from hoodies and T-shirts to trousers and vests. In May 2013 Smith collaborated with a Korean designer, Choi Bum Suk, to create a pop-up store in which customers can buy clothes with their collaborated logos.

In April 2014, Smith was cast in the film The Good Lord Bird, which is based on the 2013 novel of the same name by James McBride. Smith plays Henry Shackleford, a young slave living in Kansas Territory in 1857 who encounters abolitionist John Brown.

Personal life

Smith's father, Will, revealed that his son sought an emancipation ruling, with the consent of his parents, as a fifteenth-birthday present. Will revealed to the media that Smith's primary motivation is the establishment of his own residence and also explained that his children are not subject to strict parenting conduct: "We generally don't believe in punishment. From the time Jaden was five or six we would sit him down, and all he has to do is be able to explain why what he did was the right thing for his life." However, Smith and his father appeared together on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on May 15, 2013, and Smith said:

The thing that people don't get is everything at his house is free. So I can get anything and everything at his house, so I'm going to be there for 20, 30 more years. He [Will Smith] says that as soon as I have a movie that's bigger than one of his movies I can get my own house.

Discography