Jaleel White broke his silence about his feud with Will Smith in his new memoir Growing Up Urkel.
The Family Matters star, now 47, opened up about his now non-existent relationship with his former co-star in a new interview with We weeklywhich was published on Tuesday.
‘The strange thing is that when you meet each other in our company, you never quite know how much or how little a moment meant to each other. And that can play with your brain a little bit,” White said.
“Things didn’t go nearly the way I thought they would go with the things I said about my interactions with Will,” he said of Smith, 56.
He also shared a message he had for Smith — who admitted he “made tons of mistakes” when speaking about his relationship with fame last year — regarding what he wrote about their bond and subsequent falling out.
“I just always want Will to know – and I’m not sure he ever did – how much I admired his progress,” he admitted.
Jaleel White broke his silence about his feud with Will Smith in his new memoir Growing Up Urkel. The Family Matters star, now 47, opened up about his now non-existent relationship with his former co-star in a new interview with Us Weekly, published Tuesday
“I saw it coming before the rest of America had a chance to see it coming,” he continued.
“I saw it coming on NBA All-Star Stay in School Jam and thought, ‘This guy’s huge energy is huge in the room.’ And as a kid you don’t necessarily get credit for that.”
In his memoir, White also recalled pitching a show to Smith after signing an overall production deal with Universal in the late 1990s.
It came after White made a cameo in a crossover episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
The partnership seemed promising until everyone around him, including his agent, told him nothing would happen.
“I should have called Will directly, and the truth was that I really wanted to work with Will,” White wrote in his book.
“Shortly after my meeting with Will, his head of TV was eventually relieved of his duties, complicating the chain of command,” he recalls.
‘And Will became such a big star so quickly that months later I didn’t have the courage to call his phone myself and ask, “Hey man, why did you fire your TV head? My agent said there could be no deal can be made.
He also shared a message he had for Smith regarding what he wrote about their bond and subsequent falling out. “I just always want Will to know – and I’m not sure he ever did – how much I admired his progress,” he admitted; pictured in February in Las Vegas
“I saw it coming before the rest of America had a chance to see it coming,” he continued. “I saw it coming on NBA All-Star Stay in School Jam and thought, ‘This guy’s energy is huge in the room.’ And as a child you don’t necessarily get credit for that’; pictured in April 1991 at the 5th Annual American Comedy Awards
In his memoir, White also recalls pitching a show to Smith after signing an overall production deal with Universal in the late ’90s. It came after White made a cameo in a crossover episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air; still pictured in November 1995
‘They’re offering me this show on [United Paramount Network] and deep in my heart I know that this premise is weaker than ours.’
White eventually signed on to star in the short-lived series Grown Ups after being convinced it was the safer option for him.
“My decision to go with Grown Ups instead of exploring a show with Will Smith – sticking to my guns and being patient with the process essentially ended my and Will’s relationship,” he explained.
“I should have called Will directly, and the truth was that I really wanted to work with Will,” White wrote in his book. ‘And Will became such a big star so quickly that I didn’t have the courage to call his phone myself’; still pictured in November 1995
He rose to fame playing Steve Urkel on the hit 1990s sitcom Family Matters; depicted in Family Matters portrait from 1990
“There were no more invitations to his house or his movie sets, no more phone calls to say, ‘What’s going on?'”
White reflected on how he eventually discovered that many outsiders were involved in the incident.
“When I got the chance to almost work with him, [I now] “Go back and look at the number of people who conspired to keep us from speaking directly any further,” he said.
‘It sucks for me. But as long as I get it out there and I’m allowed to express it, that’s again one of those areas where the book just becomes therapeutic.”