Due to the nature of the business, veterans in the entertainment industry often have long and complicated relationships with each other. Jaleel White has spoken about his bond with Will Smith, and more recently, his falling out with the Fresh Prince. White offered more clarity on the situation in his memoir, Growing Up Urkel, and shared the message he has for him.
“What’s weird is when you cross paths in our business, you never quite know how much or how little a moment meant to each other. And that can kind of play with your brain,” the Family Matters actor reflected. “It didn’t go nearly the way I thought it was going to go with the things that I said about my interactions with Will.”
He then shared an important message he wanted to leave Smith, adding, “I just always want Will to know — and I’m not sure he ever did — how much I admired his forging ahead. I saw it coming before the rest of America got a chance to see it coming. I could see it coming in NBA All-Star Stay in School Jam and would think, ‘This dude’s freaking energy is huge in the room.’ And you wouldn’t necessarily get credit for that when you’re a kid.”
In the memoir, which came out on Nov. 19, White provided some insight about the strained relationship. He recalled getting the chance to pitch a show to Smith, and after being hopeful about the partnership, nothing would materialize from the plans. However, he acknowledged the situation played out the way it did due to other people who were involved in the process.
“I should have called Will directly, and the truth was, I wanted to work with Will, badly,” White revealed. “Soon after my meeting with Will, his head of TV would end up getting relieved of his duties, which complicated the chain of command.”
He continued, “And 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 White is widely known for his role as Steve Urkel on the ’90s sitcom Family Matters. He recently addressed whether or not a reboot of the beloved TV show was on the table, and confirmed he did not want to partake in the revamp because it would be impossible to “capture the magic” of the original.
“It didn’t make any sense to me,” he said, explaining that a Family Matters reboot modeled after Fuller House felt forced. “I didn’t feel that it was right for us to copy what Full House had done to fit inside someone’s business model to capture the magic that made our show make sense.”
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