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Tyrese Gibson paid a visit to The Ellen Show on Monday to talk about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and how the two Fast and Furious co-stars have patched things up in their years-long beef.
“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. 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 and the 10x WWE World Champ initially had their falling out four years ago, when it was Johnson (along with Jason Statham) named as the main star of F&F‘s first franchise spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw. The allegation was that the studios considered Johnson, who was the relative newcomer to the F&F universe, as the franchise’s biggest box office draw, so they moved Hobbs & Shaw up in its release schedule and pushed back F9.
“If you move forward with that #Hobbs Movie you will have purposely ignored the heart-to-heart moment we had in my sprinter,” Gibson then posted to social media in September 2017. “I don’t wanna hear from you until you remember what we talked about. I’m on your timeline cause you’re not responding to my text messages – #FastFamily is just that a family…….. We don’t fly solo.”
Gibson continued to go in on Johnson one month later. “Congratulations to @TheRock and your brother in law aka 7 bucks producing partner @hhgarcia41,” he wrote on IG, “for making the fast and the furious franchise about YOU – And like you, DJ even if they call I will not be deleting this post – Gn folks see you in 2020 April #FastFamily right? Nah….. it’s about #TeamDewayne #3yrs will it be worth the wait? #NoShaw just Hobbs will this be another #BayWatch?”
Some people closer to the beef, including Ludacris (who plays F&F‘s Tej Parker), say Gibson was actually first butthurt by an improvised closing scene between him and Johnson in Fast & Furious 6. But The Rock launched a clear subliminal at Gibson when Hobbs & Shaw finally premiered in 2019. “Thank you everyone for makin’ this an exciting first week of box office for our lil’ spin-off @hobbsandshaw,” Johnson tweeted. #1 movie and $333M worldwide, ain’t too shabby. And remember, the best way to shut the mouth of a clown is to flex with success and a smile.”
But in December of last year, Gibson appeared on Stir Crazy with Josh Horowitz to share that he and Johnson had since put their conflict behind them. “Me and The Rock peaced up, by the way,” Gibson said. “We talked for like four hours about three weeks ago,” he continued, adding that “[i]t was great.”
