Will Smith Said He Foresaw Losing His Career While Hallucinating During Interview Prior To ‘The Slap’

An interview between Will Smith and David Letterman is set to release on Netflix. The streaming giant has been distributing Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction and it latest episode featured Smith talking about losing it all…. well before he nearly lost it all.

The interview was recorded prior to March so his incident at The Oscars had not happened yet, which makes the rest of the story pretty eery. Smith discussed an existential fear about losing his career, and how those fears were very real to him during a hallucinatory experience during a South American sacrament known as ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca is an herbal drink this is historically created by South American shamans, and is known for its resulting hallucinations that many have compared to DMT, a drug praised by Joe Rogan and many others.

Smith said that at first he was hesitant to try the drug but was open to the experience.

“You’re not hallucinating. It’s like both realities are 100 percent present,” he explained. “So you know you’re in this room. You’re sitting in the room. You don’t lose sight. It’s not, like, superimposed on this reality. It’s totally separate.

“I’m drinking, I’m sitting there, and then, all of the sudden, it’s like I start seeing all of my money flying away, and my house is flying away, and my career is gone away,” he continued. “I’m like, ‘Ugh!’ And I’m trying to grab for my money and my career. My whole life is getting destroyed. My fear. I’m in there and I’m wanting to vomit and all of that. I hear a voice saying, ‘This is what the fuck it is. This is what the fuck life is.’ I’m [panting], going, ‘Oh, shit!'”

Smith said that the ayahuasca showed him, “the individual most hellish psychological experience of my whole life.”

As the story continued, the actor said that the hallucination moved from his material possessions to his family. That the vision of his daughter Willow being in danger flooded his mind and his thoughts.

He said, “I stopped caring about my money, I just wanted to get to Willow.”

“I stopped caring about my house. I stopped caring about my career. I get to the point where I settled down, and the voice is still at 100 percent, I still hear Willow screaming, my money is still flying away, but I’m [taking deep breaths] and I’m totally calm, even though there’s hell going on in my mind,” Smith continued.

“I realized that anything that happens in my life, I can handle it. I can handle any person I lose. I can handle anything that goes wrong in my life. I can handle anything in my marriage. I can handle anything that this life has to offer me,” he said. “That’s part of the psychological training that happens in ayahuasca. First of all, 99 percent of the s- you worry about never happens. 99 percent of your pain and your misery is all self-generated. It’s not real.”

The slap of Chris Rock was very real and the punishment that he received was as well. After he refused to leave The Oscars he was banned from attending for the next decade. Many in Hollywood have spoken out against his behavior, including Steve Harvey, who said he lost a lot of respect for Smith.