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Will Smith reevaluated parenting style after tour incident with daughter Willow Smith

Will Smith has recalled how an incident on tour with his daughter Willow Smith made him reconsider his parenting style.

On Wednesday night, the actor spoke about fatherhood during Will Smith: An Evening of Stories with Friends at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York.

The 53-year-old, who has three children - Trey, 29, Jaden, 23, and Willow, 21 - detailed his experience as a parent while Willow rose to fame following the release of her hit song Whip My Hair.

The track, which came out in 2010 when she was nine, led the starlet to tour with Justin Bieber. However, the success of the song also caused Smith to believe that he was "parenting the s**t" out of his children.

"I felt like I was doing really, really well," he laughed.

After a show in Dublin, the King Richard star recalled Willow coming off stage and saying, "Thank you Daddy. I'm finished," to which he responded that she still had to perform.

"It doesn't matter to you that I'm done, Daddy?" he remembered her replying. Shortly after, the Men in Black star said the singer showed up at breakfast with a shaved head, which opened his eyes to her feelings on the matter.

"I'm looking and I'm like, 'Got it. I got it, baby. I'm sorry. I apologise. You can stop,'" the Will author explained, adding, "It was terrifying. I felt like I had been texting looking at my phone and stepped out into the street in front of a bus and Willow snatched me back. As strange as it sounds, in that moment I discovered feelings."

He continued, "Because of my childhood, because of the way I was raised ... I didn't care about how I felt so I damn sure didn't care about how somebody else felt. My feelings didn't matter in my childhood home. You did what you were told to do. I had to really think about the question she was asking me. The question she was really asking was, 'Daddy, does it matter to you how I feel?' It was so explosive in my mind."

After the incident, Smith insisted his "parenting style changed" and he moved away from the idea that fatherhood was about "pushing and prodding and cajoling people into the vision that I had," and that his daughter, "saved me from what could have been a tragic (moment) in my life".