2022 was a bit of a predicament for Will Smith. After Chris Rock joked about Jada Pinkett Smith getting cast in the sequel of G.I. Jane, referencing her bald head, Will Smith wasted no time in standing up for his wife. However, the actor choosing the violent way to do that by slapping the comedian didn’t sit right with anyone. But we already know everything about that ordeal.
On the red carpet for the 65th Grammy Awards, it was revealed that Will Smith was supposed to be a part of a surprise performance, a tribute to hip-hop. While it would have been great to see the actor revive his music career at one of the biggest award ceremonies of today, it sadly didn’t happen. Is the Oscar controversy to blame for this?
Why Didn’t Will Smith Perform at the 2023 Grammys?
On the red carpet, musician Questlove talked to Entertainment Tonight about the hip-hop tribute performance he produced. When asked if Will Smith will also be a part of it, Questlove stated that while that was the plan originally, it, unfortunately, couldn’t come to fruition.
“I’ll let you all know. He was literally 99.44% percent in but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 this week so he couldn’t make rehearsals. But he agreed he wanted to be – everyone wanted to be a part of history.”
According to Variety, Questlove stated that the tribute had a lot of people who “have other jobs” which undoubtedly made it difficult to set a schedule for rehearsals. He added that Queen Latifah, L.L. Cool J, and Ice-T had to leave their respective shows to be a part of the performance. He again addressed Smith and stated having him in the performance was always a “Shot in the dark” as he’s quite busy shooting movies all the time. He also stated that they had to shoot preliminary shots as well and thus he added, “We had to lose Will.”
Regardless, the musician assured the audience that the performance was going to be amazing, and amazing it was. Although, he did have to cut it down to fourteen minutes instead of the original runtime, which was planned to be over twenty minutes.
Will Smith Returns with Bad Boys 4
Smith will once again join forces with Martin Lawrence for the fourth installment of Bad Boys as Detective Lieutenant Mike Lowrey. The franchise is extremely popular amongst fans as it has been going on pretty strong even after almost three decades.
We are not going to lie; the announcement of Bad Boys 4 couldn’t have come at a better time. Right now, more so than ever, Smith should desperately be looking for another topic of discussion apart from the Oscars controversy. Even with the release of Emancipation, a lot of the interviews he attended for the promotion ended up discussing the whys and hows of the slap.
Returning for the favorite buddy cop franchise could tone down the buzz surrounding the infamous incident. However, just like Smith was worried about Emancipation getting lost under all the criticism for the lead actor, he might have some worries at the back of his mind for Bad Boys 4 as well.
While a release date hasn’t been announced yet, speculations suggest that Bad Boys 4 (if that is even the actual title) will be released in either late 2024 or early 2025.
Source: Entertainment Tonight
