At the 65th Grammy Awards, the Academy is celebrating 50 years of hip-hop. According to Questlove, Will Smith was originally supposed to be a part of the tribute but had to back out due to production on “Bad Boys 4.”
“I’ll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was apart of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting ‘Bad Boys 4’ this week,” Questlove told Variety‘s Marc Malkin on the red carpet. “There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”
Questlove went on to say that he knew getting Smith for the tribute was “a shot in the dark,” because the actor is “always shooting movies.”
The four-time Grammy winner said the celebration “had a lot of people, and some of them have other jobs,” adding that Ice-T, Queen Latifah and L.L. Cool J are all participating in the tribute but had to “leave their respective shows” to join the celebration. While he says the original tribute was going to be 23 minutes long, it has since been cut down to 14 minutes. “It’s going to be amazing,” Questlove promised viewers on the red carpet.
Smith announced “Bad Boys 4” earlier this week in a video with his franchise co-star Martin Lawrence, who proclaimed, “It’s about that time!”
Smith most recently starred “Emancipation” and winning the Academy Award for best lead actor for his role in “King Richard.” Immediately after he slapped presenter Chris Rock live onstage at the Oscars, Questlove won the Academy Award for best documentary for “Summer of Soul.”
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