{"id":271748,"date":"2025-07-18T10:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271748\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:04:09","slug":"will-smith-discovers-welsh-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271748\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Smith discovers Welsh roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Smith is considering changing his name after discovering his secret link to Wales.
The 56-year-old rapper\/actor made the discovering during an interview on BBC Radio Wales in which the host Lucy Owen explained Smith’s hometown of Wynnefield, Pennsylvania is named after Welsh doctor Thomas Wynne.
The revelation prompted the Independence Day star to exclaim: “So I’m Welsh! I’m Welsh, basically. That’s what we’re saying.”
Lucy added: “Yes, Will! This is what I’m trying to say. You are Welsh, and we are claiming you.”
The movie star then joked he should change his name, saying: “That might be my new name: Welsh Smith. I’m gonna be Welsh Smith.”
The radio presenter went on to point out that Will’s mother lives in a town that also has a connection to the country – revealing the area of Bryn Mawr is named after the Welsh words for “big hill.”
She explained: “It’s a Welsh place name. It means Big Hill. So ‘Mawr’ is ‘big,’ and ‘Bryn’ means ‘hill.’ You live in Big Hill”.
Will was thrilled with the news, declaring “Big Hill! Big Will lives in Big Hill. This is crazy! Big hill. Big Will. Big still.”
The Men In Black star will be heading to Wales in the next few weeks as part of his UK tour. He will perform at Cardiff Castle on August 25.
During the interview Lucy pointed out that veteran crooner Sir Tom Jones is playing the same venue just days before Will and she told the superstar: ‘He’s effectively your warm-up act”.
Will – who previously worked with Tom when he made an appearance on his TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – said: “Wow. He’s going to be there. There’s a part in my show where we celebrate his connection to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air …
“[Working with Tom on the show] was magnificent. Yeah. You know when somebody with that kind of iconic status walks into the room, he walked onto the set and you get that [gasp].
“You know that thing when the audience recognises what’s happening. It was one of the classic moments on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
Will’s UK tour kicks off in Scarborough on August 24 and concludes in Wolverhampton on August 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Smith is considering changing his name after discovering his secret link to Wales.The 56-year-old rapper\/actor made the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[103018,748,4884,103017,16,15,1764,103019,103020,103016],"class_list":{"0":"post-271748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-bbc-radio-wales","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-lucy-owen","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wales","15":"tag-welsh-smith","16":"tag-welsh-words","17":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114873674201031129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}