Tyrese is either involved in a long-con Fast & Furious publicity stunt or he’s legitimately feeling salty about the actions of his co-star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Maybe a bit of both.
Allow me to catch you up on this ridiculous battle of balls and wills. Ever since reports surfaced that Johnson would be starring in a spin-off film based on his Fast & Furious character Luke Hobbs, Tyrese has posted a series of Instagram comments, each more bitter and dramatic than the next.
Back in September, Tyrese wrote in a since-deleted post: “If you move forward with that #Hobbs Movie you will have purposely ignored the heart to heart moment we had in my sprinter...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.”
First of all, I’d love to hear further details on the heart-to-heart they had in Tyrese’s sprinter (What color was the sprinter? What was said?). Second, I respect The Rock for ignoring Tyrese’s texts because if Tyrese’s Instagram captions are any indication, then his texts must be long, unimaginable screeds with an illogical number of ellipses.
For Tyrese, the Fast & Furious franchise is all about framily and Tyrese is concerned with maintaining the film’s ensemble vibe. That is the cross he must bear. He’s also sticking up for his buddy Vin Diesel. It’s also probably imperative that Tyrese receive his check on time.
By the way, this possibly PR-assisted dude fight blew up after Johnson called some of his Fast & Furious co-stars “candy asses”—in a not nice way—after filming, and Tyrese felt compelled to defend Diesel in particular. In another (deleted) Instagram outburst in early September, Tyrese wrote in part: “Me and the cast laugh because it seems like #Fast is like a HOLIDAY at this point….. You [can’t] push the release date of a holiday bro.”
This brings us to present day, October 5, 2017.
Just as Tyrese feared, the Fast and Furious 9 release date has been pushed back from April 2019 to 2020. Tyrese tried to tell us.
And so, Tyrese, bearing the impossibly durable Fast & Furious franchise on his back, wrote on Instagram: “Congratulations to @TheRock and your brother in law aka 7 bucks producing partner @hhgarcia41...” (Okay! That’s pretty nice of hi—) “...for making the fast and the furious franchise about YOU,” he finished. Damn.
Tyrese insists he’s “just a passionate film critic,” which may indicate that he’s not super furious about all this. But what is the f8 of this beef? How will it affect filming? Is “F9" supposed to be pronounced “fy-nine”? I don’t know. I just know you don’t turn your back on family.