Apparently there was a time when Will Smith and LL Cool J considered jumping into a Verzuz battle.
Speaking to a Shade 45 during a promotional appearance for his newly released film King Richard, Smith said that himself and LL had discussed jumping into the Verzuz arena. While they touched on the possibility, it didn’t end up going down—and Will wasn’t all that confident about his chances.
“Yeah, you know I was thinking about that. Me and L, we’re talking about doing one,” Will revealed as he sat alongside his King Richard co-stars, Demi Singleton and Saniyya Sidney. “But I never had a chance to — I was writing my book…L is going to body me.”
Will’s revelation arrives as he makes rounds to promote both King Richard and his new memoir, “Will.” King Richard tells the story of Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams. Thus far, the movie has been received positively by critics, with its Rotten Tomatoes approval rating sitting at 93%.
Will’s new book has also been getting a lot of attention. In it, he recalls finding it impossible to be friends with Tupac Shakur, who was one of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s best friends.
“Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary — they define ‘ride or die,’” Will wrote in the book. “In the beginning of our relationship, my mind was tortured by their connection. He was ‘PAC and I was me.”
“‘Pac was like Harry — he triggered the perception of myself as a coward,” Will wrote in another part of the section about Tupac. “I hated that I wasn’t what he was in the world, and I suffered a raging jealousy: I wanted Jada to look at me like that.”
Watch Will speak on the moment he and LL Cool J discussed a potential Verzuz match for yourself below.