Ladies and gentlemen: He was just kidding.
Vin Diesel has cleared the air after his strange aside while presenting a Golden Globe award on Sunday night. The Fast & Furious franchise star caused a stir when, while onstage to present the award for cinematic and box office achievement, he paused to peer at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who was seated toward the front of the International Ballroom at The Beverly Hilton.
“Hi Dwayne,” Diesel said cryptically while staring down his ex-co-star in the Fast & Furious franchise. Johnson stared back, grinning a bit awkwardly in the surprise moment. Soon after, the internet erupted with speculation that a years-old beef between the two action stars had reignited.
After days of speculation, Diesel shut down the rumors by posting an old image of himself with Johnson from the 2015 Rio de Janeiro premiere of Fast 5; that sequel was the former wrestler’s entry into the multibillion-dollar franchise that Diesel helped launch in 2001. Diesel captioned the decade-old photo of the two with, “All love… Always…”
Perhaps it wasn’t originally “all love” though. A tiff between the stars began after Johnson jumped aboard the F&F films for the fifth installment as Luke Hobbs in 2011’s Fast Five and reprised the role over the next three installments. By 2016, a battle of egos led to major tension between him and Diesel, which soon skidded (sideways, on two wheels) off the movies’ sets and moved online. The years-long feud began in earnest in 2016 with a now-deleted Instagram post from Johnson, in which he complimented the women of the franchise but referred to some of his male co-stars as “candy asses.”
Diesel was pinpointed as said “candy ass,” Johnson confirmed later to Rolling Stone.
“We have a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating,” Johnson told the magazine.
The two traded insults and mocked each other’s statements to the press about one another in a classic rivalry that seems to have helped fill some seats at Fast screenings. The films are Universal’s top franchise, clocking in as the eighth-highest-grossing film series. Its combined gross sits, for now, at over $7 billion.
With Johnson having exited the Fast & Furious “family” to star in a spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw, which saw his law enforcement character teaming up with series bad guy played by Jason Statham, Diesel was able to stretch out in the franchise he built, as subsequent sequels zeroed in on his character, Dominic “Dom” Toretto, and brought members of that character’s family into the storyline.