will smith
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The camp of Will Smith is responding to the statements made by the actor’s former assistant claiming that he walked in on Smith and fellow actor Duane Smith engaged in intercourse. A rep for Will Smith shot down the claims made by Brother Bilaal on Tasha K’s talk show series.
TMZ reports that a rep for Smith issued a brief statement shooting down the claims made by Brother Bilaal during his chat with Tasha K via the host’s UNWINEWITHTASHAK series. In a viral clip, Bilaal claims that he walked in on Smith and Martin in a comprising position, fueling past unfounded rumors that the pair were romantically involved.
According to the outlet, a source close to Smith says that the Philadelphia native is considering taking legal action over Bilaal’s statements. However, the issue isn’t going away quietly as Tasha K is heavily promoting the interview via her social media channels.
As of now, Martin has yet to respond to Brother Bilaal’s claims and has largely kept busy with work, including appearing on the dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air earlier this year.
Duane Martin was previously married to Tisha Campbell, and the couple’s divorce was finalized in 2020 after Campbell initially filled in 2018.
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Will Smith might have to get his right hand ready again for slapping after a crazy rumor about him and Duane Martin was floated to the timeline during a recent interview. A former assistant to the celebrated actor and rapper claims that he walked in on Smith and Martin getting it on, and the reactions online are what you’d expect.
On Tasha K’s show, UNWINEWITHTASHAK, Brother Bilaal revealed an explosive claim that is currently trending on the social media streets in sharing with the host that he walked in on Will Smith having intercourse with Duane Martin.
To get more descriptive, Brother Bilaal claims that Smith was bent over the couch as Martin allegedly had his way with him. As you’ll hear in video clips of the discussion online, the description is a lot more graphic than what we wrote.
The rumors of Smith and Martin being lovers aren’t new but nothing has ever been confirmed nor have the gentleman spoken directly to the claims. Martin made two appearances on Smith’s hit 1990s sitcom, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and maintained a friendship after that initial meeting over the years. Martin also appeared in three episodes for the dramatic The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air reboot, Bel-Air.
It hasn’t been a great couple of years for Smith, this after the August Alsina entanglement woes and the infamous slap heard across the world. Further, Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, just released a memoir with fans believing that the newly minted author dragged her husband’s name through the mud again.
On X, Formerly known as Twitter, the reactions to the rumors are coming in fast and we’ve got comments from all sides below.
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Source: Variety / Getty
Will Smith broke his silence to talk about his relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith in the wake of new revelations from her memoir.
The actor and producer Will Smith made a surprise appearance at the most recent stop on Jada Pinkett Smith’s media tour to promote her memoir, Worthy. The event was held at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Pinkett Smith’s hometown of Baltimore, Maryland on Wednesday (October 18th). Excerpts from the memoir have made the rounds among media outlets within the past week, which include her revealing that she and Will Smith have been separated since 2016 and that she considered the late rapper Tupac Shakur her “soulmate,” in addition to believing the infamous moment where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards was a “skit”.
“I just really wanted to come out and just be here and hold it down for you the way you have … for me,” Smith said to his wife in front of the packed audience. “We have had a very, very long and tumultuous [relationship]. We call it ‘brutiful.’ It was brutal and beautiful at the same time.” He went on to say that the speculation on whether the couple would divorce took him by surprise, as he had spent the last three weeks lending aid to a biodiversity project in Papua New Guinea. He chose to have his phone off, only learning about everything once he returned. “Our union is a sloppy experiment in unconditional love,” Will Smith told the crowd. “Jada is the best friend I have ever had on this planet, and I am going to show up for her and support her for the rest of my life.”
The gathered crowd (which included their children, Jaden and Willow Smith, and Jada’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris) also saw Pinkett Smith reiterate the comments she made in another event last week – stating that she and Smith are “working very hard” on their “partnership”. She further affirmed that during her talk with CNN Legal Analyst Lauren Coates about the memoir and the rumors.
“Will and me are good,” Pinkett Smith told Coates. “All the people who don’t understand and got something to say are just going to have to fall in line. The truth of the matter is I’m not leaving Will’s side and he’s not going to leave mine. We’ve been on a powerful quest. And I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”
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Source: Variety / Getty / Jada Pinkett Smith
If you hoped Jada Pinkett Smith was done talking, we are sad to report she is not.
Jada Pinkett Smith is currently on her whirlwind book tour for her memoir, Worthy, coming October 17, and recently stopped by the All The Smoke podcast to speak with hosts and former NBA hoopers Matt Barnes, and she had even more juicy nuggets to share, specifically about 2Pac.
Following the recent revelations that she and her husband, Will Smith, have been separated for years, Pinkett Smith revealed that her late bestie, 2Pac, asked for her hand in marriage during his 1995 prison stint.
Pinkett Smith believes that Pac would have kicked her to the curb the first chance he got out of prison.
Per HipHopDX:
“When I wrote about that in the book and when I had to talk about it, speak my words for the Audible version of the book, that was probably one of the more painful parts,” she said. “Seeing him there, the condition that he was in and having to leave him there. He was in bad shape. And so, when he asked me to get married, he was at Rikers [Island].
“I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him, which I was gonna do anyway. He didn’t have to marry me to do that. I’m here. He needed a rock. Because of our friendship and everything we had been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation.”
She continued: “I promise you, he would’ve married me and divorced me as soon as his ass got out [of prison]. He would’ve! […] I just think it was the mind state that he was in. He wrote me this long letter, and even before ‘Pac went to jail, he was starting to shift in a certain manner. Good, really good.
“And I think that for him, he just felt like, ‘Okay, if I can tether myself, it’ll keep me on a trajectory.’ But trust me, he would’ve divorced me as soon as he — one thing he wouldn’t want me as is a wife. I know that for a fact! But I think just being at Rikers, it just kinda shook him a little.”
Jada Pinkett Smith Reveals Her & 2Pac Were Not On Speaking Terms
During their conversation, Pinkett Smith told Barnes and Jackson that she and 2Pac, whom she called her “soulmate” in a recent interview with Rolling Out, were not on speaking terms because of a heated argument.
It was only after his murder that she realized that holding onto past disputes was insignificant and that you “don’t hold on to bullsh-t. It’s not worth it.”
Welp.
You can fully expect more details to drop leading up to her memoir’s release.
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Photo: Variety / Getty
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Jada Pinkett Smith is finally speaking in detail about the infamous Oscars incident where her husband, Will Smith, smacked Chris Rock during the live broadcast. In a new interview, Jada Pinkett Smith reveals that she and Will Smith were separated for years and thought the Oscars incident was a skit for the show.
Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, sat down with People for an exclusive interview discussing the aftermath of the Oscars slap, her journey from Baltimore to Hollywood, and details about her marriage to Will Smith, 55, and the trials they’ve faced. It appears that the interview is in connection to Pinkett Smith’s upcoming memoir, Worthy.
In Worthy, Pinkett Smith shares details of her upbringing in Baltimore, Md., being raised by parents who struggled with addiction, and her stint as a drug dealer in the streets of Charm City. But what most want to know is what went on in the Smith’s fairytale marriage and what hurdles they’ve had to overcome.
Regarding the Oscars moment, Pinkett Smith was just as shocked as everyone viewing.
“I thought, ‘This is a skit.,’” Pinkett Smith said of the slap. “I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him.’ It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.”
Regarding their marriage, Pinkett Smith shared that she and her husband are still working on their union but urged that love is at the center of it all.
“We’re still figuring it out,” Pinkett Smith said. “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”
Naturally, any mention of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith gets the X timeline going and we’ve got reactions from all sides below.
Worthy will be released on October 17.
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Source: Raymond Boyd / Getty
Will Smith is poised to explore a key year in Hip-Hop with a new original podcast on Audible featuring Queen Latifah, Chuck D, and more legends.
The Hip-Hop pioneer and actor Will Smith announced that the launch of a new podcast titled Class of ’88, last Thursday (Sept. 21). The podcast will explore rap music during 1988, a year which saw the ascension of Public Enemy as well as the growth of DJ Jazzy & The Fresh Prince along with the rise of women rappers such as Queen Latifah and Salt-N-Pepa.
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In the trailer, Smith begins: “Today, Hip-Hop dominates pop culture but it wasn’t always like that. Before 1988, people saw our music as a passing fad.” The eight-episode series will have Smith sit down and talk with Queen Latifah, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, his bandmate DJ Jazzy Jeff, Rakim and Salt-N-Pepa.
Class of ’88 is produced by Audible along with Smith’s Westbrook production company. The podcast network Wondery as well as podcast production company Awfully Nice are also involved in the making of the series.
The focus of the series is notable, as 1988 was the year that Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff became renowned on the scene with their chart-topping song “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” The track from their second album He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper would earn them a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance. The duo were not on hand to receive the award as they took part in a boycott of the Grammys along with other rap artists due to the inaugural performance not being televised.
“Hip-hop has been a central part of my life for over four decades,” Smith said when contacted by Billboard. “I’m hyped to share my first-hand experiences and those of some of hip-hop’s greatest legends as we delve into the origins of one of the most influential genres of music in history.”
Class of ’88 will be available to listeners on Audible and Amazon Music beginning October 26. Amazon Prime members can also stream the podcast without ads. Check out the trailer above.
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Sixteen years after Will Smith’s I Am Legend hit theaters (his last sci-fi blockbuster film, After Earth, bombed horribly), it’s finally receiving a sequel and it’ll feature another Hollywood heavyweight to help conjure up some much needed hype.
According to Variety, I Am Legend 2 is going into development and will star Will Smith alongside one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, Michael B. Jordan. Though details about the plot aren’t known, it will be interesting to see what direction the film goes in. By the end of the first film Will Smith had sacrificed his own life to save the lives of his fellow co-star Alice Braga. While there was an alternate ending in which Smith survived, many people didn’t get to see that as it wasn’t included in the theatrical release of the film.
Though the film was based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same name, in the novel, Smith’s character of Robert Neville was the last man alive in a world of vampires and not mutated human beings like in the film. Many felt that the film should’ve stayed true to the vampire material from the book, but writer Avika Goldsman decided to go a different route with the screenplay and ultimately we got mutated humans who acted a fool. Now that he’s signed a multiyear deal with Warner Bros., he’s ready to revisit the mutated world that Robert Neville is stuck in.
Variety reports:
Goldsman revealed that the sequel will follow the ending of Matheson’s novel and the original film’s alternate ending in which Smith’s character survives.
“We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” he said. “What Matheson was talking about was that man’s time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end. That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.”
So, are we finally getting vampires? Will the humans mutate into blood sucking demons of the night? We kinda hope so. Who will Michael B. Jordan play in the film? We have no idea. Naturally, many assume he’ll be Will Smith’s son for obvious racial reasons, but we doubt that will be the case. That’ll just be too cliché for the film. There is a chance we may once again see Alice Braga return as she’s expressed enthusiasm for a return to the franchise once she learned a sequel would be happening.
“I was super surprised and very curious,” Braga said. “I was almost jumping on the phone and saying, ‘Can I please be in it? Can I please be in it? Can I please be in it?’”
We sure hope so.
What do y’all think of I Am Legend 2 going into production? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Source: Bernard Smalls / @PhtoosByBeanz / @BeanzGotGamez / Nick Cannon
You can add Nick Cannon’s name to the list of people who are happy Red Table Talk was canceled.
N’Credible seed spreader Nick Cannon recently celebrated Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch talk show Red Table Talk getting axed after Meta announced it was scrapping all its original programs.
The Wild’ n Out creator and host claimed “that toxic table” ruined the Smith’s “royalty” status. “If there was no ‘Red Table Talk,’ then he wouldn’t have slapped the shit out of Chris Rock,” Cannon said on his radio show The Daily Cannon last week.
“That was royalty, Will and Jada. Then they brought it to the table,” he continued. “I don’t want to know all this shit about y’all.”
Cannon’s statements echo social media chatter that the Pinkett-Smith clan overshare regarding their marriage. “I just want to mind my Black-owned business,” Cannon said. “I don’t want to be up in everybody else’s kitchen. Keep that sh*t to y’all selves.”
For those who have forgotten, the infamous Red Table Talk episode was where Pinkett admitted to her entanglement with R&B singer August Alsina. Will Smith became a popular meme because of his “distressed look”.
That would eventually lead to the infamous Oscars slap, where Will Smith slapped the taste out of Rock’s mouth for his distasteful joke about Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair, who suffers from alopecia.
“Too much honesty can get your ass slapped in the face,” Cannon said. “They made all them memes about my brother Will. They didn’t need to do that.”
Social Media Is Side-eyeing Nick Cannon
Cannon’s comments on Red Table Talk and about knowing too much about the Smith’s business have social media calling this a classic “pot calling the kettle black” situation.
The mogul has constantly been the talk of the news because of his baby-making ways with multiple women, the count currently at 12.
“This dude has how many babies by multiple women, but Will and Jada’s open marriage had him feeling a ways? So unserious,” one Twitter user wrote.
Points were made.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: Bernard Smalls / @PhtoosByBeanz / @BeanzGotGamez
1. Exactly
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Source: Gabe Ginsberg / Getty / Sony Cinemacon
It’s Cinemacon time, and to kick things off, Sony showed off its slate of upcoming films.
Cinemacon is underway in Las Vegas, and Sony came through with some updates on a bevy of its highly-anticipated movies.
We already reported on the upcoming sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife and The Equalizer 3, but those were not the only films Sony has up its sleeve.
Kraven the Hunter
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For those who have forgotten, Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man despite his exploits in the MCU. The studio is still actively building out its cinematic universe around the web-slinger and his villain, despite how awful you thought the Venom and Morbius films were.
Another famous Spidey villain getting his feature-length film is Kraven the Hunter. The film’s star, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Quicksilver in the MCU, addressed the crowd in a prerecorded message IGN reports revealing that Kraven the Hunter will be the first R-rated Marvel movie for Sony.
A roughly 2-minute teaser trailer was shown, and in it, Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven is performing some gruesome kills. Russell Crowe is in the film and will play the father of Sergei Kravinoff. It was also revealed The Rhino is the antagonist in the film, and in a clip, Alessandro Nivola, who is playing the villain in the movie, skin can be seen changing into rhino skin.
The trailer also featured a brief shot of Sergei holding up his signature fur costume that Kraven wears in the comic books.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Source: Sony Pictures Animation / Sony
Attendees saw 14 minutes of the highly-anticipated animated sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Per IGN, the footage showed a grounded Miles Morales defying his parents’ orders to stay in his room to hang out with Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Gwen.
The two young heroes swing through Brooklyn before stopping and talking about saving dimensions from collapsing, the possibility of dating each other, and how dangerous that could be for the both of them.
The footage ends with Gwen and Miles at a festival, with Gwen leaving and Mile’s mother showing up to comfort her son, giving him confidence and support for his next mission.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2.
Bad Boys 4
We knew Bad Boys 4 was on the way, and now we know the film is currently in production. Will Smith and his co-star Martin Lawrence appeared a Cinemacon virtually from the film set.
Lawrence told the audience the film was in its fourth week of shooting, with Smith adding he was “hyped” and “excited” about what he and the rest of the crew have been working on.
Of course, Lawrence threw in some comedy relief, adding, “glad they weren’t there because they’re being paid to be on set.”
You can read up on the other films discussed during the event by heading here.
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Photo: Gabe Ginsberg / Getty
Will Smith has found a new bandmate. The Emancipation actor took to Instagram on Thursday (March 9) to share a video duetting 10-year-old bass player Ellen Alaverdyan.
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In the clip, Alaverdyan plays the smooth base line of Smith’s 1997 track, “Just the Two of Us,” while the 54-year-old raps the lyrics over the melody. “Wow!! @ellenplaysbass, this is FANTASTIC. You are the Sweetest!” he captioned the post, tagging his musician friends Jac Ross and ELEW to add their spins on the track.
“@willsmith THANK YOU FOR THIS MAGIC [red heart emojis],” the 10-year-old budding star captioned a repost of Smith’s video, and also left a sweet comment on his original post, writing “[red heart emojis] THANK YOU WILL [star emoji].”
In a recent sit-down with David Letterman for his Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Smith discussed how he felt about the “soft” reputation surrounding his 1980’s pop rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, though he never faced pressure to quit music. “Not pressure as much as it was always that I was soft. I hated that, being called soft.”
Watch Smith rap along with Alaverdyan’s bass line below.