Kevin Hart saw an opening and took it. After news broke that his longtime best friend Dwayne Johnson had been pulled over by Los Angeles police, Hart walked straight up to a paparazzi at Miami’s Carbone Beach Club and delivered his verdict: The Rock is “a piece of s***.”
According to TMZ, Hart made the comment Friday night, just one day after Johnson’s traffic stop made headlines. The comedian didn’t stop there. He also told the photographer that he was personally responsible for calling the police on The Rock. When the stunned paparazzi asked him to repeat it, Hart said the exact same thing again without missing a beat.
It’s all in good fun. Hart and Johnson have one of Hollywood’s most publicly roast-heavy friendships, and the two have spent months together filming Jumanji: Open World, which wraps up their time with the franchise. The playful jabs are as much a part of their dynamic as the movies themselves.
What actually happened to The Rock
The original incident went down Thursday, April 30. Johnson was pulled over while on his way home from Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony. Photos and video obtained by TMZ show him chatting with a cop while parked in a gas station parking lot on Sunset Boulevard.
The traffic stop was due to tinted windows on Johnson’s vehicle, a minor violation under California law. Johnson remained calm and cooperative throughout, and the stop ended with him receiving a ticket. He even shook the officer’s hand before driving away.
The timing made it all the more absurd. Just hours before getting pulled over, Johnson had delivered a speech at the ceremony praising Blunt’s character. “Every single day, knowing Emily, as many of us do, that is one grateful woman who will wake up feet on the ground, being grateful about every moment,” he said.
Hart and Johnson are wrapping up their Jumanji run
The friendship runs deep, and so does the trolling. Both Hart and Johnson have been open about how much the Jumanji franchise means to them. Johnson wrote on Instagram earlier this month that filming his final scenes for the series was “one of the most fun and pure creative joy experiences I’ve ever had in my entire career.” Hart’s gleeful response to the traffic stop is exactly the kind of behavior fans of the duo have come to expect.
This kind of behavior is nothing new on their end. Johnson’s public ribbing of Hart has ranged from Instagram digs to on-set pranks, and Hart has always returned fire. The traffic stop handed him material he clearly wasn’t going to waste. Some celebrities attract weird online moments without even trying, similar to how a TikToker’s viral praise of one California destination quickly took a very different turn. For Hart, the joke practically wrote itself.
Under California law, a first-time tinted windows offense can carry a $25 fine and a fix-it order. A second offense can push the penalty up to $200 and result in a formal infraction. Given Johnson’s net worth, the fine isn’t exactly going to keep him up at night. But the fact that his best friend has already gone to the press to take credit for calling the cops? That might sting a little more. Hart’s instinct to seize the moment mirrors what happens in pop culture more broadly, like how an obscure drink can suddenly take off and catch everyone off guard when the timing is just right.
Jumanji: Open World is set to hit theaters on Christmas Day 2026, which means Hart and Johnson still have a full press tour ahead of them. Expect more of the same.
