Content Warning: This article about Will Smith discusses suicide. If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For further information about depression contact Beyond Blue on 1300224636 or talk to your GP, local health professional or someone you trust.
Will Smith has revealed he once “considered suicide” in the trailer for his upcoming YouTube Originals documentary series Best Shape of My Life.
Best Shape of My Life follows Smith as he attempts to lose 20 lbs. (around 9 kgs) in 20 weeks, but as the trailer reveals, the show is set to focus as much on his mental health as his physical.
“When I started this show, I thought I was getting into the best shape of my life, physically. But, mentally, I was somewhere else… and I ended up discovering a whole lot of hidden things about myself,” he says in the trailer.
Smith’s fitness journey coincided with working on his upcoming memoir, which he says was like “exposing my life and so many things that people don’t know about me.”
In a conversation with his family included in the trailer, Smith admits “that was the only time in my life that I ever considered suicide,” although it is not yet clear what period of his life he is referring to.
The trailer also hints that Smith was close to quitting the series at one point, as he is shown saying: “I don’t want to do any of this. I’m finished with The Best Shape of My Life.”
The trailer ends with Smith appearing to read a snippet from his memoir to his family.
“What you’ve come to understand as Will Smith, the alien-annihilating MC, bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction, a carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself, to hide myself from the world. To hide the coward,” he reads.
Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life will premiere on YouTube on Monday, November 8th.
For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.