Will Smith has bravely faced zombies, aliens and rogue robots on the big screen.
But a tarantula? In his house? Forget about it.
Over the weekend, the veteran actor made his official return to social media nearly five months after slapping Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards and getting banned from the ceremony for 10 years.
His latest Instagram and TikTok video shows the Oscar winner and his eldest son, Trey, cautiously attempting to remove a tarantula from their family home.
“Posting this from a Holiday Inn,” Smith jokingly captioned the clip, which has racked up 4.5 million views on TikTok and more than 930,000 likes on Instagram since Saturday.
In the one-minute video, Smith can be heard saying, “What the whole hell? That is a big ass spider,” while filming the furry arachnid that Trey identifies as a tarantula.
From behind the camera, Smith later clarifies that he’s standing “up on the chair” to avoid getting anywhere near the spider before telling his 29-year-old son, “You gotta get that out of here.”
When Trey shoots him an incredulous look, Smith teases, “Come on, you’re young and strong. You can handle a bite.”
Finally, Trey manages to trap the creepy-crawly under a glass jar, and Smith shrieks while sliding a piece of paper between the eight-legged creature and the hardwood floor.
“That’s the biggest spider we’ve ever seen in our lives,” Trey says.
“We’re selling the house,” Smith jokes.
The tarantula video comes a day after Smith tested the Instagram waters by sharing a clip of a baby gorilla poking an adult gorilla that swats at it with the caption, “Me trying to get back on social media.”
The “King Richard” star has come under scrutiny since the Oscars incident, which he apologized for while “condemning violence in all of its forms” back in April. Since then, Smith has kept relatively quiet on the internet — except for a single video in July in which he addressed the situation in depth and apologized again.
"(D)isappointing people is my central trauma. I hate when I let people down. So it hurts,” he said last month.
“It hurts me psychologically and emotionally to know I didn’t live up to people’s image and impression of me. ... I’m trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself. ... I know it was confusing. I know it was shocking. But I promise you, I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world.”
———
