‘Fast 9’ Star Tyrese Gibson Opens up About Reconnecting With Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Following Feud

Tyrese Gibson revealed in December that he and Dwayne Johnson had ended their years-long feud, and the actor just shared some more details on the pair’s current relationship during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday. “We’ve been on the phone every other day. We reconnected in a real way. I think we’re both better men on the other side of all that stuff that went down,” Gibson told guest host Tiffany Haddish.

“To be honest, I didn’t know how the phone call would happen,” he continued. “But it did happen and we’re about 20 phone calls in. We’re in a competition right now on who can leave the longest voice note.” Gibson had previously shared that he and Johnson had ended their feud during an appearance on Stir Crazy With Josh Horowitz. “Me and ‘The Rock’ peaced up, by the way,” he said. “We talked for, like, four hours about three weeks ago. It was great.”

The duo’s disagreement dates back to 2017 after it was reported that Johnson would appear in a Fast and Furious spinoff based on his character, Luke Hobbs. The spinoff was Hobbs & Shaw, which delayed the release of F9, and Gibson expressed his disdain for the spinoff and threatened not to appear in the franchise’s ninth installment should Hobbs & Shaw proceed. “Hello world, hello loyal fans and loved ones from OUR fast universe” he wrote on Instagram in November 2017. “I’m sorry to announce that if [Dwayne] is in Fast9 there will no more Roman [Pearce]. You mess with family and my daughters survival I mess with yours.”

Ultimately, Hobbs & Shaw was released in 2019, posting the franchise’s lowest numbers since its third installment in 2006. “I have to show my respects for one thing…. He tried……..,” Gibson wrote in a since-deleted Instagram caption at the time. “Folks called me a hater…. Attacked me for speaking out…..Breaking up the family clearly doesn’t have the value that one would assume it does.”

While Gibson was the one who threatened to leave the franchise, Johnson did not appear in the recently-released ninth installment of the Fast saga, F9, and Gibson did. “Honestly, this is going to be the most vulnerable Fast that we have done,” Gibson told Haddish of F9. “It’s one thing for you to confront bad guys, and it’s another thing for your bad guy that happens to be your brother. It’s a different kind of vulnerability.”