“Men in Black” director Barry Sonnenfeld claims that an on-set fart by Will Smith once led to the evacuation of the entire crew for three hours due to the overpowering smell.
As per a Daily Mail report, Sonnenfeld directed Smith back in the 1997 action-comedy ‘Men in Black’, and shared the story of the incident when he appeared on the podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa.
According to Sonnenfeld, the incident took place while filming a scene with Smith and co-star Tommy Lee Jones inside a transforming car that required them to be “hermetically sealed” in a pod.
“There are locks to prevent it from opening and falling. I say, ‘Roll camera,’ and I hear Will Smith go, ‘Oh Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder.’ And you hear Tommy saying, ‘That’s fine, Will. No worries, Will,'” Sonnenfeld recounted.
“Anyway, I don’t know what’s gone on, right? So we race the ladder over, Tommy reaches his leg out as the ladder is coming over, races down the stairs. And what happened was, Will Smith is a farter. It’s just some people are. And you really don’t want to be inside a very small hermetically sealed space with a Will Smith fart.”
The director also joked that even sitting next to Smith at Disney Ranch was a risky situation for him. However, Smith’s representatives have not yet commented on the director’s claims, although many are eyeing the situation to see what truth it holds.
Despite the new noise about Smith, Men in Black in the late 1990s went on to become a massive hit, grossing $584 million worldwide and ranking as the third-highest-grossing film of 1997.
Sonnenfeld later directed two more sequels in Men in Black II back in 2002, and Men in Black 3 in 2012, with the latter co-starring Josh Brolin.
In the last months, Smith has returned to the stage, and surprised lots of fans at Coachella in April when he joined Colombian singer J Balvin to perform his 1997 hit song “Men in Black.”
The veteran actor also dressed in his iconic Agent J attire, and donned a black suit and sunglasses, alongside dancers dressed as aliens from the film.
The performance came five years after Smith last appeared at the festival when he joined his son, Jaden Smith, on stage, and it also marked his first musical performance since his infamous 2022 Oscars incident, where he slapped comedian Chris Rock who joked about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Back in August, Smith performed his 1991 hit “Summertime” in Los Angeles, and continued his return to music.
He then also made an appearance at the BET Awards this year, where he performed a new song with singer Coco Jones during an event celebrating season three of Bel-Air, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air spinoff.