Daily Times

Will Smith made life of his Ali co-star Paul Rodriguez a “nightmare” after he harassed him with his jokes and “nasty remarks” on movie set.

The Mexican-American actor also blamed the King Richard star for his career downfall claiming that his management company dropped him because of Smith’s stunts

However, despite everything that Smith made him go through, Rodriguez still does not hold any grudge against him, hoping that he learned his lesson following the infamous Oscars slap.

“Look, I get no joy out of him going through this but maybe he’ll have a lot of compassion for what he put me through because it’s a horrible thing to be the butt of the joke,” Rodriguez as per The Sun.

“After he made me the butt of all his jokes and nasty remarks on Ali, people didn’t want to hang out with me no more,” he added. “It was like the word got out and I had leprosy all of a sudden.”

Talking about how his career suffered since he starred in the biographical sports drama, Rodriguez said, “That movie was meant to be one of the biggest and most wonderful breaks in my career but he made it a nightmare and it all went downhill from, there: I was dropped by my management company and I couldn’t get an agent worth a damn.”

But after all that Smith did with him, Rodriguez only had good wishes for him, “Even though everything he put me through, I feel sorry for Will Smith; the price he’s going to have to pay is almost bigger than the crime.”

“He was one of the biggest stars in the world, and all this affection people had for him has turned into apathy, all for a moment of stupidity,” he said before adding that he believes that his Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith is also to blame for the slap.

“I think he’s suffered enough and deserves redemption, but the real villain here is his wife, Jada,” he said speculating that Pinkett-Smith was the one who “ordered the hit” on Chris Rock.

“I think people watched that clip and realized the real villain wasn’t the hitman but the person that paid for the hit, you know?” he noted.