10 Ways The Fresh Prince Was Darker Than You Remember | Ranked

Did the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cause a school shooting lockdown

Was Will Smith a real-life bad boy? Why were there two Aunt Vibs on the show

Maybe the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air wasn't as fresh and clean as we remember

Here is what really went down on this legendary show as we explore the top ten ways the Fresh Prince was darker than you remember

Turns out Regina George wasn't the original Mean Girl. What? It was actually the cast of the Fresh Prince

who kept a Mean Girls-style burn book hidden in a drawer in the set's kitchen island

Actors and crew regularly wrote gossip about fellow cast members like, James is getting on my nerves

Daphne looks different this season. And why is Alfonso a better dancer than Will

All right, well, maybe the last one I made up. But, you know, you get the point. Actor Karen Persons, who played Hilary Banks

admits that she kept the diary after the show was canceled. Ugh, the good old 1990s

A world before tweets and hashtags and the gram. It's like the only way to complain about people back then was writing Dear Diary in a journal

If I ever hop in a DeLorean and go back in time, remind me to buy some pins

Casual fans of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air might think that the show is based on Will Smith's real life

But real OG fans watching this video know that that's not the case

What I do have is the truth! Oh, shut up, Will! Will's character on the show was based on the life of Benny Medina

Benny Medina is a well-known music business producer and talent manager and record executive

At the age of nine, his mother died of cancer and his father left after numerous stints in prison for using and dealing drugs

Because of his drug-dealing father, a young Benny Medina grew up in and out of foster homes

and eventually lived with his aunt in the rough and tumble streets of Watts, just south of L.A

The Fresh Prince of Watts just didn't have the same ring to it. But here's where it gets really interesting

During his teen years, Benny Medina befriended a wealthy white teenager living in Beverly Hills

and that teenager allowed Benny to stay in a refurbished garage behind his family's property

At the same time Benny attended Beverly Hills High School and that wealthy environment inspired Fresh Prince of Bel Turns out Ski wasn the only one in the 90s

who wished to be a little bit taller. Jada Peekett-Smith missed out on a role

of playing Will Smith's girlfriend on the show because she wasn't tall enough

While Jada might not have stood tall enough for Will on screen, apparently she was tall enough for him off screen

Jada got the last laugh when she married Will in 1997, and they live happily ever after

except for the rumors of infidelity. But those stories are for another ranker list

Any true Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fan will tell you that the most emotional moment of the series

is when Will is let down by his dad and confronts Uncle Phil about it

in the episode Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse. Rumors were that Will ad-libbed

the ending gut-wrenching monologue after channeling his real-life experience of being abandoned by his own father

However, the truth is that Will and his dad had a great relationship. Since Will couldn't use a neuralyzer to erase his amazing childhood

he had to find another way to channel the feeling of wanting approval from a parent

He found a way to do that from none other than the man standing across from him in the scene

James Avery, a.k.a. Uncle Phil. During an interview, Will admitted that throughout his time on the show

he was constantly looking for James' approval when it came to Will's acting chops

Apparently, Will channeled that desire for approval into the famous confrontation scene with Uncle Phil

channeling the real-life energy into James Avery. It worked as almost the entire live studio audience was in tears by the time the scene was over

Anyone else need to grab a tissue after hearing that sob story? I might need a second

The series was supposed to end after the season four finale, where Will goes back to Philadelphia and decides to stay there and live with his mother

Fresh Prince fans weren't having that at all. They said, No way, uh-uh, forget it

When NBC canceled the sitcom after four seasons, they were hit with thousands of angry fan letters

Forming an angry mob, eh? Who we going after? Puff Pants! Remember, everyone loved

to use pins back then. Apparently, the piles and piles and piles of letters worked as NBC listened and granted their fans wish renewing the show for two more seasons Hell hath no fury like a Fresh Prince fan scorned A school in Pennsylvania went into full lockdown in 2013

when a receptionist at an optometrist office called a student to remind him about an appointment

She was directed to his voicemail, which happened to be the Fresh Prince's theme song

Instead of chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool, the receptionist called the police

She mistook the lyrics, shooting some b-ball outside the school, as shooting some people outside the school

The school was put on lockdown until officers arrested the kid in question

Sounds like the only one making trouble in this neighborhood was the receptionist who called the cops

Guess Will was right. I always just don't understand. It was a different kind of men in black

that were coming for Will in the beginning of his career. After living beyond his means

in the early days of his rap career, Will Smith owed Uncle Sam $2.8 million

The IRS seized his belongings and his income. Tired of seeing Will mope around, his girlfriend at the time convinced him to go hang out on the set of The Arsenio Hall Show

in hopes of finding an opportunity that might boost his career. Will agreed, and eventually he met Benny Medina

You remember him, right? We literally just talked about him number nine on our list

Unless the MIBs erased your mind. The rest is history, as they say, as Benny took Will to a party at Quincy Jones' house

where Will performed an impromptu 10-minute audition for the part of The Fresh Prince

in front of a room full of actors, artists, celebrities, and politicians

Lawyers at the party drew up a contract for the show on the spot

and boom, boom, shake the room, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was born

For the first three years, he paid 70% of his salary from The Fresh Prince to the IRS

Who knew Uncle Phil would end up saving Will from Uncle Sam? Things weren't all that jazzy when Smith and Jeff Townes, aka DJ Jazzy Jeff, were sued

by Jive Records. The duo were signed to Jive and released their first album, Rock the House

in 86 They received a Grammy Award in 1989 for their song Parents Just Don Understand and in 1991 they released the hit song Summertime which earned them another Grammy and together they sold over 5 million records

You would think Jive would be jumping and jiving all the way to the bank, but instead

Jive Records became concerned when Jazzy Jeff and Smith shifted their focus onto their acting careers

with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Shortly after they released their third album

Smith began to pursue acting full-time, and the group split. They were eventually sued by their record label, who alleged that the duo was still under contract to create more albums

Bad news, we didn't get more albums. Good news, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith remain close friends to this day

Prior to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith's only acting credit was in an ABC after-school special

To say that he was untrained would be an understatement, and that lack of training was apparent in season one

Smith said of the early days on the show, I would memorize the entire script and then I'd be lipping everyone else's lines while they were talking

When I watched those episodes, it's disgusting. My performances were horrible. No wonder James Avery, a classically trained actor, may have judged Will as a novice actor

What's next? And finally, as we move on to the number one spot, we ask a very important question

Will the real Aunt Viv please stand up? At our number one spot for the darkest side of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

was the beef between the original Aunt Viv, Janet Hubert, and the Fresh Prince himself

Janet clearly wasn't getting jiggy with it and ended up departing the show

after she slammed the A-lister for not helping his castmates negotiate for higher pay

She left the cast in 1993 and was replaced with Daphne Reed

It was only recently on the Fresh Prince reunion in 2020 that these two actors sat down and hashed out the truth

and end their decades-long feud. Hubert revealed that she was in an abusive marriage

She was also pregnant during season three and she claims Smith painted her as being difficult to work with

which caused a lot of damage to her career. Smith admits that he was not sensitive to Hubert's situation at the time

and he acknowledged that only after having his own family and maturing did he realize

what she must have been up against. I'm glad these two finally worked it out. Sad that it only took 27 years