The 2025 Grammy Awards are this Sunday and Will Smith is eyeing to make a comeback. According to TMZ, Smith will present at the ceremony, which will mark his first major awards show appearance since basically being blacklisted in 2022 after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. While he has attended other awards shows in the past since the 2022 Oscars, Sunday’s Grammys will be the first major one he’s attended since that night.
In case anyone needs a refresher, Rock was presenting at the 2022 Oscars and made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. After Smith called out Rock, yelling to him to, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—ing mouth,” he jumped on the stage and slapped Rock. The moment made the Oscars ban him until 2032, even despite having the chance to be in the running to win an Oscar before then. That slap doesn’t seem to have killed his chances to appear on other awards shows, though, it just took some time.
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Smith will be in the company of some other pretty big presenters, such as Cardi B, SZA, Gloria Estafan, Olivia Rodrigo, Queen Latifah, Victoria Monét, and Taylor Swift. It’s unknown what award Smith will be presenting, but there’s a good chance the slap will be referenced, whether by Smith or by five-time host Trevor Noah. The slap has been referenced at numerous award shows in the past, and it wouldn’t be surprising if that were the case again for the Grammys this weekend.
Will Smith’s momentary lapse in judgment may have had him blacklisted from major award shows, but he’s still been pretty busy in Hollywood. He served as an executive producer on the first season of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Peacock reboot Bel-Air in 2022, as well as Let the World See, This Joka, Emancipation, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and Cobra Kai, which will drop its final episodes on Feb. 13 on Netflix. Acting-wise, Bad Boys: Ride or Die was his first film since 2022’s Emancipation, but according to IMDb, he has at least seven projects in the works, including I Am Legend 2.
On top of Smith presenting, there will be much to look forward to during the 2025 Grammys, with plenty of performers, some of the biggest names in music, and much, much more. It all starts on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
