Will Smith (left) and Tatyana Ali doing the ‘Anxiety’ dance; Smith, Doechii and Ali together (right). Photo:
It was the perfect reunion.
On March 14, Will Smith shared a video on TikTok of him and his The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air costar Tatyana Ali taking part in the “Anxiety” dance trend. In the trend, two people recreate a scene from the show in which Ali’s Ashley is dancing in her room while listening to music in her headphones. Smith’s Will creeps into the room behind her and mimics her dancing. The dance challenge on TikTok is set to Doechii’s hit song “Anxiety.”
In Smith’s video, he and Ali — who is wearing headphones — jump into the dance and are joined by Doechii, 26, who dances her way into the room. Smith, 56, wrote in the caption, “Waited 35 years for this dance to trend.”
The dance picked up speed at the end of February and in recent weeks has become one of TikTok’s biggest trends. Smith posted the original clip from Fresh Prince on his TikTok on March 5 and wrote in the caption, “I’ve been watching y’all and every video has been better than the last!! Love that track @Doechii. @Tatyana Ali remember this?”
Doechii also shared a video of herself on her account doing the dance. She wrote over it, “Who else is forcing everyone to do this dance with them?” And Ali, 46, posted her own video of herself doing the dance solo in an airport.
The dance itself is from the end of the pilot of Fresh Prince, which aired on Sept. 10, 1990. Will has just moved in with his more uptight cousins, and he finds Ashley in her bedroom dancing with the Walkman she stole from him. Ashley says that her dad (James Avery’s Uncle Phil) won’t let her get a Walkman so that he can monitor her music. In the show, viewers never find out what song she was listening to, but the scene is a sweet moment of connection between the two cousins that helps set the tone for the whole series.
The Fresh Prince ran until 1996, for a total of six seasons. It helped make Smith a superstar. The “Anxiety” dance is also far from the first dance trend the show spawned; The “Carlton” dance, brought to life by Alfonso Ribeiro, became an almost instant touchstone when the actor first performed it on the show.
Most of the show’s cast got together in 2020 for a reunion. A more gritty reimagining of the show, titled Bel-Air, has also aired on Peacock since 2022. Ali had a recurring role in the show’s second season as the teacher of the new Ashley (played by Akira Akbar).
Tatyana Ali (left) and Will Smith in ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ in the early 1990s. Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
Speaking to PEOPLE in 2024, Ali called it a “360-degree moment.” “I’m telling this beautiful Ashley, ‘Always be yourself. Never let anybody define you,’ ” Ali remembered. “I had to take a beat. I told the director, I was like, ‘Are we done? Okay, thank you so much.’ And I went around the wall. I just bawled, because my heart exploded.”
“She is the age that I was when I was doing Fresh Prince, and to be a young actress on a hit show at this time was a very special experience,” she said. “It also requires a lot of self-protection and knowing who you are and competence, and she has all those things.”
