Will Smith recalls birth of first child: ‘Shook me to my core'

Will Smith choked back tears as he recalled the “terrifying” moment he became a parent for the first time.

In a candid conversation during An Evening with Will Smith at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday, Smith revealed that he wrote his 1997 track Just the Two of Us the night he became a parent to Willard Carroll “Trey” Smith III in 1992.

The Oscar-winning actor and rapper, 56, said: “It's crazy, but you're like, I cannot tell you what it was like bringing that child home on that first night and realizing that he was my responsibility," he said, becoming tearful.

"He's cool now, thank God – he's going to be 32 this year," he said of Trey, whom he shares with his first wife Sheree Zampino.

“Parenting was one of the first things, the first real things in my life that really shook me to my core," the Bad Boys actor admitted.

Getting tearful, he added: "I remember that first night. I can't even talk about it. Because I had talked so crazy about my father and all the stuff my father didn't do. And then I was like, 'Oh no, it is my turn now.' And I just fell down on my knees and I made one of the most hardcore promises ever made to a human being. That I was going to do everything I could do to be a good daddy to you."

Will Smith also shares son Jaden, 26, and daughter Willow, 23, with wife Jada Pinkett Smith.