Will Smith was to perform in 2023 Grammy hip-hop tribute but dropped out, says Questlove

The 65th Grammy Awards celebrated 50 years of hip-hop and Questlove was assigned the task to produce the iconic 10-minute performance.

However, according to Questlove, Will Smith was originally supposed to be a part of the said tribute but had to back out at the last minute, per Variety.

Quest cited that due to production on Bad Boys 4, Smith could not be a part of the gig.

“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,” Questlove told the outlet on the red carpet. “There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”

Quest went on to say getting Smith involved was “a shot in the dark” anyways due to the fact he 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.

On Tuesday morning, January 31st, 2023, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence announced that they were returning to reprise their roles in Bad Boys 4.