Have you ever met a celebrity you idolized and they treated you with disdain? Well, actor Micheal Ealy recently shared his celebrity horror story. In a recent interview with The Chicago Tribune actor Micheal Ealy recalled a time when comedian Chris Rock was rude to him on set. Another actor on set Kerry Washington saw the exchange and checked Rock on his behavior. The unpleasant encounter went on to make Ealy resent Rock, even years later.
“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,” Ealy shared. “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.”
Ealy says that Rock belittled him on set.
“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 said Kerry Washington saw the whole thing and stood up for him which is something that he appreciates still to this day. He also clarified that Rock was rude, not his team.
“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 ass hole. You never know what somebody’s going through. Wherever he was in that point in his life, he probably wasn’t very happy.”
It wasn’t until years later when the two ran into each other at an award show that Rock stepped to Ealy as a man and apologized for his actions.
“Years later I see Chris at the Golden Globes. I had been nominated for Sleeper Cell and I run into him on my way to the bathroom. And you know what he said? ‘I love your work and I apologize for what I said.’ He 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! For him to acknowledge it was huge it meant everything to me. And he’s kind of a dope person because of that.”
You can catch Micheal Ealy star alongside Megan Good and Dennis Quaid in The Intruder, which is about a couple who purchases a home from a stranger but he is still attached to the house so he does things to interfere in their daily lives.
