Will Smith dropped out of 2023 Grammy performance: Questlove

The Fresh Prince had other matters to attend to at court.

Will Smith almost made an appearance on Sunday at the 2023 Grammy Awards during a tribute celebrating 50 years of hip-hop, Questlove revealed.

“I’ll give the spoiler alert away: Will Smith was a part of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting ‘Bad Boys 4’ already this week,” the musician revealed during an interview with Variety. “There’s a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”

The tribute included several high-profile celebrities including Queen Latifah, Ice-T, the Roots and LL Cool J.

“It was a shot in the dark,” said the four-time Grammy winner, whose real name is Ahmir Khalib Thompson. “He’s always shooting movies. We had a lot of people and some of them have other jobs.”

“There was a lot of legit reasons why we couldn’t be all-inclusive of some people,” continued the 52-year-old.

Had Smith appeared at the award show, it would have been the first time the duo had been together since Smith infamously slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars just before Questlove won Best Documentary for “Summer of Soul.”

Questlove joked that he wasn’t “present” for the slap due to the fact he was meditating during the commercial break.

Smith, 54, confirmed the fourth installment of the “Bad Boys” franchise on Instagram last week alongside his co-star, Martin Lawrence.

“IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME,” the post’s caption read.