Will Smith forced to drop out of Grammy Awards surprise appearance

Article content

Will Smith had to drop out of a surprise performance at the Grammy Awards.

During Sunday night’s ceremony, Questlove and The Roots celebrated 50 years of hip hop with special appearances by the likes of Nelly, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes, Run-DMC and Will’s former collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff.

However, the star admitted to Variety that the former Fresh Prince of Bel Air star was also meant to be “part of the festivities.”

“I’ll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was part of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 this week,” he said.

“There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”

Questlove added that having the Hollywood star involved was “a shot in the dark” due to his busy filming schedule.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

If he had been able to take part, it would’ve marked Smith’s first awards show appearance since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars last year after the comedian made a joke about the actor’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

The joke was made while Rock was on stage presenting the Academy Award for best documentary, which coincidentally was won by Questlove himself moments later.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams recently discussed the incident involving the King Richard actor and insisted Smith should be given the chance to atone for his “mistake.”

Williams, whose rise to the top of the sporting world was documented in the film, regrets how the slap overshadowed Smith’s Oscar triumph and that of Summer of Soul – which won the Best Documentary Feature award directly after the shocking incident.

“I thought it was such an incredible film and I feel that there was an incredible film after that with Questlove that kind of was overshadowed,” she told CBS Mornings.

“But I also feel that I’ve been in a position where I’ve been under a lot of pressure and made a tremendous amount of mistakes, and I’m the kind of person that’s just like, ‘I’ve been there. I’ve made a mistake. It’s not the end of the world.'”