Will Smith had a terrifying experience that nearly left him for dead while filming his new travel show, “Pole to Pole With Will Smith” on Disney+.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 30: Will Smith attends Apple Original Films' "Emancipation" Los Angeles premiere at Regency Village Theatre on November 30, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

During an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Smith explained that he and the crew were scuba diving at the North Pole and were under thick ice when things started to go wrong.

“So you go under the ice, and the ice can be up to 10 feet thick. So we’re under, we went out about 40 yards away It’s like an upside-down ice mountain range, right?” he said.

He continued, “We went under, and I start hearing, ‘Abort dive! Abort dive! Abort!’ And I’m like, ‘Oh no,’ right? So I went to ascend and hit ice. I was like, ‘Oh no, Will, calm down. Calm down.’ You have a tether on, and you have to pull yourself back to the hole, right? I grabbed and accidentally pulled my mask off.”

He joked that after he got his mask on and calmed himself down, he thought, “‘If I get out of here, I’m only gonna do Black stuff from here on out.’ I promise Lord! African American behavior from here on out!”

Thankfully another member of the team also helped pull him out by his tether and he and a sort of “spiritual” moment.

“When I realized I was good, I just relaxed and I looked around and when I tell you, the sun is coming through the ice and it went from terror to the most spiritual, beautiful thing,” he said. “And I was just like, ‘Whoever’s up there, don’t let go of my tether!’”

The “Independence Day” star also hunted for anaconda in the Amazon with an indigenous tribe on a “conservation” mission.

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 12: Will Smith attends the "Pole To Pole With Will Smith" London Premiere at the Natural History Museum on January 12, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

He recalled the guides, who he noted were naked and “didn’t even have no clothes on, their whole name and address was hanging out,” spotted an anaconda in the water and jumped out of the boat to collect it.

“They had a sense that there was some kind of illegal dumping going on, and the scales of the anaconda, they hold whatever’s in the water,” he said. “So they would take a scale from the anaconda and test it to be able to use it in court.”

Smith joked, “I don’t know why they needed me!”

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