PEOPLE’s Toria Sheffield pointed out a video featuring Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Aldon Smith. The athlete was interviewed by a famous professional barber, Tee Maultsby. The barber loves to chat while he cuts his customers’ hair. In that 10+minute-long chat, the late defensive end spilled out subtle signs of his personal struggles just days before his death at 36.
Aldon Smith revealed details about his life just days before his shocking death at 36
Tee Maultsby posted the video on YouTube on June 8, 2026. Aldon Smith passed away on June 13, 2026. The video features the following life details:“How are you feeling today?” the Laced Up podcast runner asked.“I’ve definitely had better days,” Smith said.“You wanna elaborate on that?” asked the celebrity barber.“Yeah, but I kinda don’t. It’s along the lines of something I’ve been dealing with my whole life, and I’m just struggling with accepting how it’s playing out right now,” Smith said.Smith felt like he was talking gibberish, but Maultsby said it wasn’t gibberish and said, “We all go through stuff.” Smith later said he was grateful and in a state of gratitude. “It’s been a tough week. It’s been rewarding, and it’s starting to pay off. Things are starting to happen,” he said.Smith later shared that it was “bittersweet” to be back at the San Francisco Bay Area.The welcome was warm and the people were like family, but the former 49ers DE wanted to have some things with him before coming back to the Bay. He had not expected to return to the Bay, but he noted that his situation had changed. “I don’t know if I’ve gotten a chance to really enjoy it or let my guard down to enjoy it,” Smith said.
Aldon Smith felt like everybody fit into a mold after getting out of football
“Everybody was doing something that they had felt comfortable with, or they were following the mold,” Smith said. “You play football, and you coach football. I have nothing against football. I played football. But I knew that environment as an occupation. On the coaching side, it’s not something that I had an interest in or being an analyst. It’s just not me.”While playing football at a high level, he knew it was not his goal to become a coach or an analyst. He knew he did not want to become a coach because of the way he learned to play football, which was unorthodox. It was hard for him to teach people if he didn’t really understood it. He learned playing football while growing up with older and bigger guys. So, playing football in his high school with his age group people was not difficult for him. Because he had learned the game differently. He credited his ability to observe, duplicate, and understand the game. He did not rely on his size as his primary advantage; he was a 6-foot-4, 225-pounder.
Aldon Smith was never praised consistently by coaches
The Oakland Raiders DE said he never felt like he had a “big head” or that he was “that guy” during his playing days.He was never in a position where he received consistent praise from his coaches. They often approached him with the preconceived notion that he had been “butt-kissed” or was coddled by previous coaches. This led them to be tougher on him to prevent a “big head.”He was always coached hard. And he always worked hard to produce. In college, he felt that his coaches liked him primarily because he worked hard and produced results on the gridiron rather than through personal coddling. “My head was always so in the place of the external needed to be happy with me. It was never…that was the noise. I was never in a position of being consistently praised for what I was doing,” Smith said. “I never had a coach consistently. And every other coach thought I was getting my a** kissed from the previous coach. So, I’ve always been coached hard. From every coach who coached me the hardest because they already think either I’ve a big head or I come into it with prior butt kissing.”Whenever he entered the locker room, he always thought he was not good enough. He felt like he was never the best one in any of his teams.
