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Willow Smith Sounds Off On Pressures of Growing Up Famous

Posted byBy Kiersten Willis | Published on: CommentsComments (0)
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Willow Smith dropped out of “Annie” years ago to enjoy her childhood. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Environmental Media Association)

The life of a celebrity’s kid may sound glamorous, but Willow Smith says growing up in the public eye is “absolutely terrible.” The actress famously gave up her pop music career after 2010’s “Whip My Hair” and while she’s readying a new album, she says she’s had to make some decisions about living in the spotlight.

“Growing up and trying to figure out your life … while people feel like they have some sort of entitlement to know what’s going on, is absolutely, excruciatingly terrible — and the only way to get over it, is to go into it,” Willow, the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith told Girlgaze magazine in a Friday. Nov. 24 story. “You can’t change your face. You can’t change your parents. You can’t change any of those things. So I feel like most kids like me end up going down a spiral of depression, and the world is sitting there looking at them through their phones; laughing and making jokes and making memes at the crippling effect that this lifestyle has on the psyche.”

“When you’re born into it, there are two choices that you have; I’m either going to try to go into it completely and help from the inside, or…I’m really going to take myself completely out of the eye of society. There’s really no in-between,” she added.

Smith’s admission comes days after former first daughter Malia Obama was captured blowing smoke rings. Conservatives quickly came after the 19-year-old, just as they had done when she was caught smooching a fellow Harvard student Rory Faquharson.

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