Willow Smith has revealed she stepped away from child stardom to avoid "sadness" as her early taste of fame sent her to a "terrifying and dark place".
The 21-year-old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith rebelled against her dad after she felt he pushed fame onto her. The singer said she knew she "needed to be a kid" before starting her career.
Willow launched her music career at just nine years old, recording the hit-song Whip My Hair, with encouragement from her parents. The song was an instant hit and soared to the top of the charts.
Willow, however, didn't want any of the fame that came with it and "really tested" Will to show that she was done with child stardom.
"I saw at a very young age the dark path I could have gone down. I think I kind of caught myself before my coping mechanisms started too early," she said during an appearance on SiriusXM's Bevelations.
Willow said she had "touched a sadness" and felt glad to take a step back.
"That was terrifying. Because I was like, 'I’ve never felt this before.
"This is obviously not healthy and I need to stop this before it becomes a darker place' and realistically, in my young mind I really didn't know. I just knew it felt wrong.
"I just knew everything felt wrong," she added.
Willow said she had to learn to forgive her parents following the release of Whip My Hair.
"It was mostly daddy because he was so harsh at certain times. It was a couple of years, honestly. Trying to regain trust for not feeling like I was being listened to or like no one cared how I felt," she admitted during an episode of Red Table Talk.
At one point, the hitmaker wanted to stop touring, but Will said she had to finish what she started.
"She really tested me," Will explained during the episode.
"She was like, no, she didn’t want to. She was done with Whip My Hair. She was done with performing, and as a protest, she shaved her head bald.
"That was really the first time that I realized that my family wasn’t happy with the direction that I was taking them," he added.
Willow has now said her worries have an "upward and forward motion".
She noted: "It’s not a deep, heart-breaking, like, world-shattering fear. I really just think my higher self was like, 'No. This is going to go bad for you.' And I just had to listen."
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