There are few celebrity teens as interesting or idiosyncratic as Jaden and Willow Smith. They're both talented musicians and designers, and they have groundbreaking senses of style. Willow had a hit song when she was 9 years old and no one else's Instagram is quite like Jaden's.
They're also really close to one another. They work together creatively, and they're good friends.
Pharrell Williams interviewed Willow and Jaden for Interview magazine, where he asked the siblings how they've managed to stay so close over the years. Willow gave the credit to their famous parents, saying Will and Jada never tried to push them together. They just let them connect to one another on their own terms.
WILLOW: Yeah. It's crazy, the sibling dynamic. I could've spent my entire childhood like, "I have to love this person." And it becomes a chore. But our parents were never like, "You have to love them." It was more like, "You have your life. He has his life. And when you guys want to come together, when you guys want to commune, that's up to you." And throughout us realizing ourselves and realizing each other, we just opened our eyes and were like, "Damn, you are the yin to my yang." Not a lot of siblings have that opportunity, because they're always being pushed together so much. They need their time apart in order to realize themselves and realize who they are.
The hands-off approach to their relationship may seem unusual, but Will and Jada have been deeply involved in their children's lives in other ways.
Willow and Jaden are homeschooled in a system that they call "Mystery School," where they're taught how to make records and build pyramids. Their parents also teach them how to grapple with ethical decisions, and how to settle differences with one another.
Willow and Jaden say their freedom is what allowed their creative instincts to bloom. "Before people were looking at the things that we were doing, we were so much more, like, method with fashion," Jaden told Pharrell. "We went the extra mile on everything because there was no one looking at us."
"My parents are definitely my biggest role models," Jaden said. "And that's where me and Willow both pull all of our inspiration from to change the world. It all comes from a concept of affecting the world in a positive way and leaving it better than it was than when we came."
