Jaden Smith Got Upset With a Fan For Using 1 of His Movie Character’s Names: ‘I Have to Talk to My People About That’
We know Jaden Smith for his eccentric tweets, wild fashion, and hit music. But prior to superstardom, the young Smith was starring in films alongside his father, Will Smith. The father-son duo were both in After Earth in 2013.
Following the release of the film, Jaden answered fan questions in an interview. And he didn’t seem happy when a fan took his After Earth character’s name to ask questions. Here’s what happened.
Jaden Smith starred alongside Will Smith in ‘After Earth’
Jaden and Will first worked together in 2006’s Pursuit of Happyness. After that success, they took it one step further with After Earth in 2013. Will plays General Cypher Raige who builds a bond with his son, Kitai, as they navigate their difficulties when their aircraft crashes to a barely-hospitable Earth.
Jaden and Will sat down with Cambio to talk about the movie back in 2013, too. “I started thinking about something Jaden and I could do together,” Will explained. “After Earth came out of it.”
Jaden thought it was really cool that Will wrote him as the star of the film.”The fact that he wrote that for me, it really meant a lot,” Jaden explained.
“This is our family business,” Will continued. “It’s how I was raised. I was raised right next to my father and my mother at work in the family business.”
Jaden got upset when a fan used his ‘After Earth’ character’s name as a fan name
While After Earth flopped with critics, it no doubt meant a lot to Will and Jaden to have a movie that involved so much quality bonding between them. Given how the father and son talk about the film, they put their hearts and souls into making it something fun for themselves. And this may have caused Jaden to get quite defensive when it came to fans taking his character’s name as a social media name for themselves.
Jaden sat down with Cambio in 2013 to answer fan questions. The interviewer started off the question by stating who’s asking. And when she begins the question by stating, “This one’s from Kitai,” it sets Jaden off.
“Kitai?” Jaden asked incredulously. “They took that name? We let them take that name?” he frantically asked out to his crew. “I have to talk to my people about that.”
The interviewer continued on with the question, which was, “What’s the hardest thing about acting?”
“The hardest thing about acting and being in the spotlight is probably when you do a character and people take the name of your character, like on social media,” Jaden added. This caused some nervous laughter from the interviewer and others on the set.
Many think Jaden is too entitled
Jaden seemed to be genuinely upset that a fan took “Kitai” as their own fan name. The young actor certainly has a right to his feelings, but he’s been called out by critics before for entitled, pompous behavior. It seems many think Jaden is pretentious due to the lack of rules he had growing up.
“Spoiled? Too mild,” one critic wrote for the New York Post. “These kids are nuclear narcissists. The elder Smiths may have boycotted the Oscars because they weren’t nominated, but they boycotted parenting because they couldn’t be bothered to raise kids with any grounding in reality.”
The critic then went on to call Willow Smith’s tweets “vapid and humorless.” And the article featured quotes from both Willow and Jaden where they pointed out that they don’t enjoy a lot of music and books because they can create better art themselves.
In any case, we’re not sure if Jaden is still upset about the fan using “Kitai” as a name. But we’re hoping he’s moved past it and sees it as flattering now!
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