Will Smith has been out of the general public eye since winning his first-ever Academy Award last March. 

Now banned from the Oscars ceremony and resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, With fans, Hollywood, and talking heads deliberating the importance and fallout of the incident that occurred between the actor and comedian Chris Rock just moments before his big win, an interview filmed sometime before Oscars Night is seemingly casting the infamous moment in a latest light. 

While sitting with David Letterman on his talk show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Smith revealed that he had a daunting vision of suddenly losing all that he had worked so hard to construct. 

Smith revealed that, while a bit disillusioned with the empty success of creating blockbuster hits, he took a 2-year acting break that found him in Peru, experimenting with the mind-expanding psychedelic ayahuasca. In response to Insider, one such experience, which he describes as “the person most hellish psychological experience of my life,” forced him to face his fear of losing his fortune, fame, and success. 

“I’m drinking, I’m sitting there, after which, impulsively, it’s like I start seeing all of my money flying away and my home is flying away, and my profession is gone,” Smith told Letterman. “And I’m attempting to grab for my money and my profession. My whole life is getting destroyed…I’m in there and I’m wanting to vomit and all of that. And I hear a voice saying, ‘That is what the fuck it’s. That is what the fuck life is. And I’m going, ‘Oh shit.’”

Within the midst of all this chaos and fear, Smith described hearing his daughter’s voice, distressed and calling for him to assist, off in the space. Suddenly not one of the material things mattered. 

“Then slowly, I finished caring about my money, I just desired to get to Willow. I finished caring about my house, about my profession.”

Smith told Letterman that the experience, while frightening, taught him a priceless lesson. 

“Anything that happens in my life, I can handle it. I can handle any person I lose, I can handle anything that goes incorrect in my life, I can handle anything in my marriage, I can handle anything that this life has to supply me.”

Smith’s full interview with Letterman is now streaming on Netflix.