--- title: Will Smith Thinks There's a Lion in His Backyard description: Will Smith took to The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday where he told DeGeneres that there was definitely a lion in his backyard. canonical: https://time.com/4595537/will-smith-lion/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-08T20:09:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:39:19.600Z og:title: Apparently, Will Smith Has a Lion in His Backyard og:description: Ellen DeGeneres thinks otherwise og:url: https://time.com/4595537/will-smith-lion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Apparently, Will Smith Has a Lion in His Backyard twitter:description: Ellen DeGeneres thinks otherwise twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # There's a Lion Living In Will Smith's Backyard According to Will Smith > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=2d8dc52f-f55d-4a7b-a7e4-79d660b5fa6c&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 8, 2016 8:09 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 8, 2016 8:09 PM UTC [Will Smith](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689234,00.html) has some pretty wild new neighbors — at least, that’s the story that he told [Ellen Degeneres](http://time.com/4456515/ellen-degeneres-is-not-racist/) when he appeared on her eponymous show on Thursday. According to [_Collateral Beauty_](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/11/10/collateral-beauty-trailer-will-smith)star, there’s a lion in his backyard, although actual footage from his home shows that the lion is really more like a mountain lion or a feral big cat, something that DeGeneres kindly pointed out to him. Smith, however, remained unconvinced, telling Ellen that his solution to the issue of the “lion” was to “immediately put the kids on punishment, you call the ranger, and the ranger comes out and says you have a lion.” He later joked that he hoped animal control would be able to send the lions to his neighbor Denzel Washington’s house. 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