“Please… please stop taking pictures of our children… they just want to be normal kids.”

Last year, then-11-year old Willow Smith caused an Internet uproar when she Tweeted a picture of herself with what looked like a tongue ring while bragging that she got a tongue ring. And people clearly believed that she would get her tongue pierced because she dresses like this and has hair like this, so it just seemed logical. It turned out, though, that she was just playin, y’all, because she just wanted to watch everyone overreact. Take that, you poor adults working hard to pay bills, whatever those are.

But the timing was convenient, because it reminded us that not only were her father, Will Smith, and rap superstar Jay-Z producing a remake of the classic musical Annie, and not only were they trying to get Emma Thompson to write it, but it was also starring Willow. After all, her brother got to be Karate Kid for Halloween so she should get to be Annie.

Except now she doesn’t want to do it anymore. “Gosh dad, just give me a million dollars and leave me alone!”

In an appearance last week at Temple University for “Real Talk With Sister Souljah and Will Smith” – my invite must have been lost – Smith dropped this little rant before revealing that his daughter won’t be starring in Annie anymore:

In the past 18 months, I have spent a lot of time focusing on the emotional aspect of my life and my family. In 2010, in one year, our family had the ‘Karate Kid.’ we had ‘Whip my Hair,’ we had Hawthorne, and at the end of the year, we did the Nobel Concert when Barack Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize. Don’t be clapping yet, that wears you out.

Standing ovation for Hawthorne, ladies and gentlemen. Because TNT was really hurting for a medical drama.

The thing that had become very clear to me is the danger of a material world and focusing so hard on coming up with money or a house or a job. You focus so hard on those things, and sometimes you can lose focus on why you are doing it in the first place. The only reason to do any of that is to have love.

Reminder: Will Smith is worth approximately $200 million. It’s probably more, but I’m also not accounting for Scientology and Illuminati dues. Either way, yeah, the Smith family worries about where their next home will come from.

Willow was supposed to be doing ‘Annie,’ we got Jay-Z to do the movie, got the studio to come in and Willow had such a difficult time on tour with ‘Whip my Hair’ and she said, ‘You know Daddy, I don’t think so’ and I said, ‘Baby, hold up! I said no, no, no, listen, you’ll be in New York with all of your friends and Beyoncé will be there. You will be singing and dancing,’ and she looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, I have a better idea, how about I just be 12.’

Cool story, Will.

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