16 Years Ago, ‘Cop Out’ Sparked One of Hollywood’s Weirdest Feuds Between Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis

The 2010 Bruce Willis-Tracy Morgan comedy Cop Out wasn’t just a disappointment to critics and fans of everyone involved; it was a huge disappointment to director Kevin Smith behind the scenes. To say that Smith and Willis didn’t get along during the film’s production would be a massive understatement—based on what Smith had to say on the subject, anyway. The weirdest part about that is the two had worked together and even appeared in scenes with one another a few years earlier in 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard. For some reason, that chemistry didn’t carry over into their next project.

Rumors of a feud started swirling before Cop Out hit theaters. When Willis didn’t show up for the movie’s wrap party, Smith reportedly gave a toast saying, “I want to thank everyone who worked on the film, except for Bruce Willis, who is a f—king dick.” Willis’s rep denied that there was a rift at the time and explained that Willis wasn’t in attendance because he was doing press for the movie Surrogates.

By 2011, Smith was airing his grievances publicly—without mentioning Willis’s name.

The Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis Feud, Explained

While being interviewed by Marc Maron in January of that year, Smith called his experience with Willis “soul-crushing.” In his 2012 book Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good, Smith went into much more detail about what things were like on-set, revealing that Willis had trouble keeping up with Morgan’s ad-libs, would stop scenes prematurely, and flat-out refused to say his lines at times.

There also apparently came a point where Willis told Smith to clear the set and asked Smith if he wanted to hit him. Evidently, this was the result of Smith not wanting to do a scene Willis’s way; Smith finally agreed and then punched three holes in the bathroom wall.

Smith went on to call Willis “the unhappiest, most bitter and meanest emo-b—h I’ve ever met.” Willis eventually responded to the attacks in 2013, calling Smith a “whiner,” and telling Time Out, “I don’t have an answer for him. I’m never going to call him out and lay him out in public. Sometimes you just don’t get along.” Smith continued to comment on the situation, and as recently as 2021, he referred to Willis as “true darkness.”

However, following Willis’s aphasia diagnosis in 2022, Smith took to Twitter to issue an apology to Willis and his family for his petty complaints over the years. You can read Smith’s full apology below.

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