Will Smith found a creative way to apologise to Michael Bay after a disagreement about a shirtless scene in the first Bad Boys movie. Smith sent the action movie auteur a signed copy of his new book ‘Will’ along with a note that read “OK, Michael. You were right. I was wrong!”
What was Will wrong about? Well, in the book Smith opens up about a disagreement the pair had while filming the first Bad Boys movie. Apparently, during one of the thriller movie’s intense chase scenes – where the film’s villains have kidnapped Tea Leoni – Bay wanted Smith to be shirtless, but the Fresh Prince was resistant to the idea.
Eventually, the pair hit a compromise. Smith could wear a shirt during the chase, but he wasn’t allowed to button it. After they finished filming the scene, Bay reportedly told Smith that he’d just made him a movie star. Judging by the inscription in the book, it’s taken a few years, but Smith has finally come round to the idea.
Bay shared Smith’s apology on Instagram in a fun little video where he pretends to discover a copy of ‘Will’ by his pool. “Mr Will Smith gave me a present for Christmas… it looks like a book,” He joked. “It’s Will Smith’s new book, but in it I found something ‘OK Michael, you were right I was wrong’, I think that’s Will Smith’s signature… it looks like an apology for something. I think it’s when I made him run without a shirt in Bad Boys, or a shirt on half-open, and made him a movie star.”
Whether Smith has Bay to thank for his stardom is debatable – he’d already appeared in Six Degrees of Separation and two other films by the time he starred in Bad Boys – but it was his first blockbuster. After Bad Boys, Smith made a string of hits, including Independence Day, Men in Black, and Enemy of the State.