The Intruder star Michael Ealy recalls the time Chris Rock was rude to him on set and didn’t apologize until years later.
Michael Ealy says that Chris Rock “was just an a**hole.” Read on for more tea spilling on Chris Rock via Michael Ealy…
CelebNMusic247.com has learned that back when The Intruder star Michael Ealy was a struggling actor still waiting tables in New York he had his first run-in with an actor after he booked a small role in the film Bad Company.
Michael Ealy revealed that it was Chris Rock. He explains that what initially began as excitement at his first Hollywood role—and the opportunity to meet his idol Rock, turned out to be a total disappointment.
Ealy reveals in a new interview recalling the moment he met Chris Rock, who was incredibly rude to him on set, which hurt and angered him so much that he carried a grudge for Rock for years. He actually didn’t get over it until Rock apologized years later.
Micahel detailed what happened during filming with Rock:
Chris Rock was a little cold. He was probably at the height of his career at this point and I idolized him — I had watched all his stuff and thought he was so funny and I really respected him — but he was just kind of indifferent to me. “We had to do some reshoots for the end of the movie so they asked me to come back a couple of months later — I’m still waiting tables, so I take a day off from that — and we’re doing this wedding scene between Chris and Kerry [Washington] and I’m the best man.
So, we’re about to shoot this scene, I’m in my tux, I come on set and Chris and Kerry are standing there and Joel is telling me where to stand. And right before he says action, Chris looks over at me and he says: ‘Oh. Still in the business, huh?’ And when he said that, it was like a Mike Tyson left hook. And I knew he wasn’t joking around. I think maybe he was trying to disguise it as playful teasing, but it was a dig. For whatever reason, it was a dig: ‘You still in the business, huh?’
Ealy continued, adding even the film’s co-star’s, Kerry Washington, was shocked by Rock’s behavior.
The 45-year-old actor adds:
Some people don’t get it when I tell this story, but to say that to me was beyond disrespectful — to the point where Kerry was like, ‘Chris, no.’ I still love Kerry to this day because she was like, ‘What’s wrong with you? That was just wrong.’ He had an entourage of people and they were very nice to me, but he was just an a——. You never know what somebody’s going through. Wherever he was in that point in his life, he probably wasn’t very happy.
When I first moved to New York and started waiting tables, I didn’t tell anybody that I wanted to act because it’s kind of a cliché. I didn’t want people to look at me and think: Oh, this pretty boy thinks he can just come here and be an actor. I wanted to have a chance to prove myself to myself and pay my dues. So, when he said that, it was crushing. It was awful.
Ealy also admitted that he was so angry he wanted to get physical with Rock, but refrained:
I just stayed professional and did my best, but I was stuck there having to look like I’m happy to be at my friend’s wedding when really at this point, I wanted to punch him in the f—— face. The crying came later. In the moment I wanted to punch him in the face. That was my Maryland upbringing coming into play where you just fight.
Three years after the filming of the 2002 film Bad Company, He crossed paths with Ealy at the 2005 Golden Globes. Ealy recalls that Chris Rock humbly apologized.
Here is what he had to say about Rock after “I had been nominated for ‘Sleeper Cell’ (a Showtime drama from 2005).”
Ealy details the night saying, “I run into him on my way to the bathroom” and “And you know what he said? ‘I love your work and I apologize for what I said.’”
He continued saying:
[Chris] somehow remembered what he said to me and that it was wrong — and he owned up to it and apologized and told me he loved my work and he was a fan. That’s when the crying happened!
we have to break that down, Chris realized that Michael Ealy was here to stay and it would be best to apologize and not have an enemy in the biz.
Michael Ealy’s takeaway was that “no matter how crushing it feels, you cannot give up. You have to keep pushing.”
