Will Smith's dream for his family to all be famous and successful left them all "miserable".

The 54-year-old actor had the "greatest year" in 2010 when his and wife Jada Pinkett Smith's son Jaden, now 25, broke out in the movie world with 'The Karate Kid', and their daughter Willow, 22, enjoyed a chart hit with 'Whip my Hair', but he soon came to realise fame and fortune isn't everything.

Speaking to Kevin Hart on his 'Hart to Hart' show, he said: “2010 was like the greatest year as an artist, as a parent. 'Karate Kid' came out in June, ‘Whip My Hair’ came out in October. I’m building this dream of a family I’ve had in my mind.

"I’m going to do it better than my father did it.’ We’ve talked about it, my father was abusive…I told myself I would never have that kind of energy with my family, and I had a dream, an idea of a family I was building. Pretty much 2010 to 2012 I had achieved everything I had ever dreamed. I was beyond [my] wildest dreams.”

But things soon turned sour, leading to a "mutiny" from Willow.

Will - who also has son Trey, 30, with ex-wife Sheree Zampino - continued: “Nobody in my family was happy. Nobody wanted to be in a platoon. Willow was the first one to begin the mutiny, and it was my first realisation that success and money don’t mean happiness.

“Up until that point, I really believed that you could succeed your way — to a house and a family — and you could win your way to happiness.”

The 'King Richard' star learnt a valuable lesson as a result of his daughter's rebellion.

He said: “You can have so much stuff that it makes you miserable.

“That was my first pull-back, and I was like, ‘OK, what am I missing?’ That’s when I started reading and studying psychology and the relation to human happiness. I was never unhappy, I loved life — but I was driving the people around me in a way that I was leaving scorched earth.”