Jaleel White Details Late ‘90s Fallout w/ Will Smith

Jaleel White Details Late ‘90s Fallout w/ Will Smith

Jaleel White is opening up about his fallout with Will Smith.

In his memoir Growing Up Urkel, the Family Matters star detailed a time he pitched a show to Will Smith in the late 90s. While it looked like it was going to be greenlit, Jaleel White’s agent and others around him told him the series wouldn’t move forward because of the decision makers, such as Will Smith’s head of TV who Smith fired at the time.

Jaleel White wrote in his memoir, according to Us Weekly,

“I should have called Will directly, and the truth was, I wanted to work with Will, badly.”

He continued,

“Will was becoming such a big star, so fast, that I didn’t have the nerve to call his phone myself months later and ask, ‘Hey, man, why’d you fire your head of TV? My agent said there was no deal to be made. They’re offering me this show at UPN and I know in my heart this premise is weaker than ours.’”

Jaleel said instead of reaching out to Will, he signed on for another show, which he considered the safer option, called Grown Ups. The show aired for one season in 1999. He wrote,

“My decision to go with Grown Ups instead of exploring a show with Will Smith — sticking to my guns and being patient with the process basically ended my and Will’s relationship. There were no more invites to his house or his movie sets, no more calls to say ‘Whats up?’”

He reflected on the fallout and told the magazine,

“When I got the opportunity to nearly work with him, [I now] go back and look at the number of people that conspired to make sure that we did not speak directly any further. It sucks for me. But as long as I got it out and I got to express it, that’s once again in one of those areas where the book just becomes therapeutic.”

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