Will Smith: I'm embarrassed I can't swim

He might be an action man on the big screen but Will Smith says he’s ‘embarrassed’ to admit he can’t swim.

The 44-year-old Men In Black actor said he’s okay in water if he can put his feet on the ground.

‘I can’t swim. In inner City Philadelphia [where he grew up], there’s not a lot of swimming pools and I never actually leat how to swim and I’m embarrassed about it,’ he said during an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

‘I’m not scared [of the water]. I get in the water but as long as my feet can touch the bottom, I’m good because I go in, jump up and get some air.’

Smith says matters are made worse by the poolside when his kids Jaden, 14, and daughter Willow, 12, splash around like fish.

Will said: ‘They [Jaden and Willow] can swim because it was important to their mother that they leat how to swim but you can get through life without that.’