Why Grammys 2023 Dropped Will Smith Performance?
The 65th Annual Grammy Awards celebrated hip hop’s 50th anniversary on Sunday with a star-studded gala honoring the genre’s history and continued global influence. There were dozens of artists on stage who showcased hip-hop’s evolution over the past 50 years. The Roots’ Questlove brought together a diverse all-star cast in his curatorial efforts to transform the Grammys into a full-blown house party. There was, however, a surprise performance by Will Smith that was dropped before the award ceremony due to his busy schedule basis his upcoming projects.
So, despite his plans to surprise the Grammys with a musical return, the King Richard star was compelled to cancel the performance. Questlove spoke in an interview about the cancellation of Will Smith’s surprise performance at the 2023 Grammy Awards and his process of selecting artists for their performance at the event.
Questlove Reveals Why Will Smith Dropped His Surprise Appearance At Grammys 2023
The King Richard star Will Smith was supposed to surprise everyone by making a musical return at the Grammys in 2023 for its 50th anniversary of hip-hop after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars last year. But unfortunately, he and his fans missed out on the opportunity. During an interview with Variety, The Roots’ Questlove, the producer of the special tribute performance, revealed that Smith was initially scheduled to participate in the tribute but dropped out due to the pre-production of Bad Boys 4.
American musician Ahmir Khalib Thompson, best known as Questlove, told the outlet,
“I’ll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was a part of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting ‘Bad Boys 4’ this week. There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”
Despite his desire for Smith to surprise the crowd, Questlove understood and said,
“Will was a shot in the dark as he is always shooting movies.”
According to the musician, the celebration had many people, and some had other jobs. For example, he said Ice-T, Queen Latifah, and L.L. Cool J all participated in the tribute but had to leave their important tasks and shows to join the hip-hop anniversary celebration. He originally planned a 23-minute tribute, but it was trimmed later to 14 minutes. Nonetheless, the performance was incredible, featuring Nelly’s 2002 Hot in Herre, Salt-N-Pepa and Spinderella’s 1988 My Mike Sounds Nice, and Busta Rhymes reciting all the lyrics from his jump into Chris Brown’s 2011 track Look at Me Now in conjunction with Spliff Star.
Martin Lawrence And Will Smith Confirm Bad Boys 4 Movie
There is indeed a return of old mates Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for a fourth Bad Boys film, which is in pre-production at Sony Pictures with director Adil El Arbi and producer Bilall Fallah coming back from a script by Chris Bremner.
Smith announced Bad Boys 4 with excitement earlier this week in a video with his franchise co-star Martin Lawrence on his Instagram handle. He captioned the heart-warming video, “IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME!”
Upon reaching Lawrence’s door in the video post, the duo announced the upcoming fourth film as they shouted in excitement. In 1995, Bad Boys earned $141 million worldwide, while Bad Boys II earned $273 million. Despite the inflation in cinema ticket prices over the past 17 years, the third film, Bad Boys For Life, outperformed the previous two movies combined at the box office. After the announcement, fans eagerly await the fourth part, which is currently untitled and will definitely be a blast at the box office.
Smith’s most recent films include Emancipation after he won an Academy Award for best lead actor for King Richard last year but immediately ruined the moment as he slapped Chris Rock over the joke he made for Smith’s wife, Jada Smith.
