Travis Scott Got a Whooping as a Kid for Lying About Reading the Odyssey His English Professor Grandmother Assigned Him
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“That summer, she made me do an essay on the book, and I did some CliffsNotes bullsh*t,” he told Variety. “I got a whoopin’ because I lied about reading it.”
“She’s like, ‘See? That’s why I made you read that book; now you’re in this movie,’” Scott says, beaming. “It’s actually crazy.”
Scott’s paternal grandmother, Bernice Webster, an English professor, assigned the eighth-century BC Homer poem as part of his childhood summer reading curriculum. He rushed through it out of disinterest, leaned on CliffsNotes for the essay, and got caught.
The reading list was one side of a childhood split between two Houstons. Born Jacques Bermon Webster II on April 30, 1991, Scott spent his earliest years living with his maternal grandmother Sealie Wood in Sunnyside, a working-class neighborhood in southern Houston he’s credited for his “edge.”
Around age 6 he moved in with his parents in Missouri City, a middle-class suburb outside Houston, where his mom Wanda Webster worked for Apple and his dad Jacques Webster Sr. ran his own business and played soul music on drums and piano. His father bought him his first drum set at 3 and taught him to play. His paternal grandfather was a jazz composer with a master’s in music composition. Bernice, on the other side of the family, ran the summer reading.
He didn’t stay away from the story for good. Scott turned up at Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” premiere in London on July 6 alongside Mia Goth, Elliot Page and Nolan himself, then again the next night with Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and composer Ludwig Göransson. He hit the New York premiere on July 14 with Damon, Luciana Barroso and Tom Holland. The film opened in theaters July 17.
Grandma Webster has been enjoying it. “She’s like, ‘See? That’s why I made you read that book; now you’re in this movie,'” Scott told Variety. “It’s actually crazy.”
Scott also contributed the song “When I’m Home,” co-created by James Blake and Ludwig Göransson, to the film, six years after his single “The Plan” appeared on the Tenet soundtrack. He now plans to take Bernice, Wanda, and Sealie to see the movie, saying he wants to “shut down” a theater for his family.
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