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ByTessa Hayley Hellberg/
For most of his life, Solange Knowles' son, Daniel Julez J. Smith Jr. (publicly known as Julez Smith) has remained out of the spotlight, which is hardly shocking, given his family's penchant for privacy. However, Smith is all grown up now, and as he's gotten older, there's significantly more interest in his private life.
Despite Solange opting to keep her son relatively under the radar throughout his childhood, he's certainly never been hidden from the world. In fact, as longtime fans of the Knowles family and Destiny's Child may remember, Solange featured in the 2004 Destiny's Child music video for "Soldier" while heavily pregnant with him. Over the years, he's also been spotted on many outings with the family, and on rare occasions, they have even shared snippets of sweet memories with him. Who can forget Smith's adorable collaboration with Beyoncé in honor of Blue Ivy's arrival? Smith played the piano as Beyoncé sang about the two dancing together, with the former finishing the piece off chirping, "This is your big cousin, yo!" (viaLaura Gonçalves). Smith also popped up in a number of TV show appearances,and even featured in Aunt Bey's 2013 "Life is But a Dream" documentary.
However, it's only been in recent years that Smith's personal life has become more public. Sticking to his family's values of maintaining mystique, he's remained relatively quiet about it. In fact, even when he's been linked to drama, he's stayed mum.
Julez has been involved in some serious drama in the past
Julez Smith may have had a low-key public persona for most of his life, but his mid-to-late teen years were certainly marred by a number of scandals.
In early 2021, rumors that Smith was dating "Jessie" alum Skai Jacksonmade the rounds. However, news of the relationship only broke after the former couple had parted ways ... and let's just say, the split was an acrimonious one. For starters, when asked by an Instagram follower if he and Jackson were friends, Smith didn't mince words. "F**k no," he wrote (via Just Jared Jr). From there, things escalated, asscreenshots of a group chat seemingly showed Smith accusing Jackson of infidelity, and admitting their relationship had been physical — a big deal, if true, since Smith had been underage at the time. Smith also supposedly shared a video of Jackson as an act of revenge p*rn during that time — an unsavory allegation, no doubt. The situation was never formally addressed by either party or their families.
The following year, Smith made headlines again when he was accused of impregnating a girl. Again, screenshots shared to TikTok, then reposted on X, formerly known as Twitter, claimed to back things up. This time, however, Smith clapped back to rubbish the claims, saying they were all false ... and making mention of his famous family.
Above all, Julez is protective of his family
Soon after the pregnancy claims were made, Julez Smith shared screenshots of the woman claiming to be pregnant with his child, asking him to address the situation and deny the claims. That, he did — and he did so while clapping back at those who had used the situation to speculate about his family life, too. "Usually I wouldn't speak on this typa stuff but this time I'm not gonna let y'all drag my family for something that is fabricated," he wrote (via Radar).
It wouldn't be the last time Smith would shut things down when it came to his family. In fact, in a 2023 TikTok Q&A session, he reminded fans he would never spill the tea on anything to do with his relatives. Naturally, that included offering context about what had happened between his mother and uncle, rapper Jay-Z, during that infamous elevator altercation back in 2014. "You know me, you know I don't speak on my family ... Anything about my family is for y'all to find out somewhere else but it ain't from me," he said (via Metro).
Smith's teen years may have seen him go through some serious growing pains in the public eye, but here's hoping that, as an adult, that'll be a thing of the past. One thing we're pretty clear on, though, is that, like his loved ones, he'll decide what he addresses and what he won't.
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