Will Smith may be a mega movie star, but to Jaden Smith, he’s just ole embarrassing dad. To mark the teen actor/rapper’s 17th birthday on Wednesday, July 8, the Independence Day star took to Facebook to tease his son on a worldwide platform. “Jaden is 17 years old today,” the proud dad blogged, adding a photo of his smiley son as a toddler sitting in a birdcage. “I’m just glad he stopped eating paste!”
Jaden’s mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, also Facebooked her birthday greetings Wednesday. Mom’s message, however, followed the traditional sappy mom route. “To my son, Today you are 17. It was on this day a tremendous gift was delivered to me. A baby boy, whose existence reflected back to me all the passion, curiosity, love, and beauty that only a child could collect from the deepest recesses of his mother’s secret heart and breathe it into the world,” the Magic Mike XXL actress, 43, wrote.
“You have made the beauty I could only feel within myself absolutely tangible. You were not only born from my body, but born from my soul,” she continued. “You are a light of my heart and a light from my deepest wishes. I am so grateful for you.”
There’s no question the Smith family — which also includes Willow and Will’s eldest son Trey — are as tight as can be. In April, Jaden celebrated his famous father by shouting him out in his new single, “Offspring.” In it, Jaden raps: “My dad said to beat the system, understand it first / My dad’s an inspiration, I respect the man and work / And everything you say is something that you can’t reverse / Something that you can’t rehearse.”
Will and Jada are proud that their kids have followed in their footsteps in the industry, and developed an equally solid work ethic. “[Jaden] has refused to be a slave to money. I so respect that,” Will told Esquire. “They’re really well-adjusted around this business and understanding the nature of having to take a battering. And Jaden understands that that’s a part of this business. If he wants to do it, there’s a certain amount of battery that you have to be willing to live through.”
