For days you've heard the various rumors about why hotter-than-fire comic Katt Williams won't be hosting the BET Hip-Hop Awards that taped on Saturday, Oct. 18. Some may have even read that foolish statement on BET's website – clearly an attempt to parody the truth – claiming that the hot combed comedian relinquished his duties as host after losing a competition in a break dancing battle with hip-hop star T-Pain.

Well the truth is that the 35-year-old funnyman won't be seen when the BET Hip-Hop Awards premiere on Thursday, Oct. 23 because he had a heated confrontation with a producer from Cosette Productions and refused to return to rehearsals unless the producer apologized. "Katt was disrespectful, difficult and demanding throughout the process and his unprovoked verbal lashing on the producer was unwarranted," a source close to the production told me.


It all began after Williams arrived at rehearsals for the BET Hip-Hop Awards three hours late. A producer greeted him when his RV, which he was driving himself, pulled up and wanted to escort him into the rehearsal. "He hopped out of his RV and went into a 'do you know who I am' rant. He was angry and wanted to know who called the union on him, because there had been an issue with Katt's camp trying to over-schedule the backup dancers," my source explained. Apparently the Ohio-bred star of 'First Sunday' then went into rehearsal and acted as though nothing was wrong, but moments later abruptly stopped rehearsal and declared: "Someone owes me an apology. I'm sorry, I can't go on without an apology."

BET brass scrambled to resolve the situation. Williams lined up his entire staff and demanded that the network or someone from Cosette Productions have the unsuspecting producer apologize to each of them. Said producer refused, standing by the fact that Williams' attack on her was unprovoked and superfluous. The 'Friday After Next' star, who hosted two previous BET Hip-Hop Awards, then left rehearsal and refused to return until an apology was ready to be issued. When it was determined that Williams had no intention to return for rehearsals the day before the show, producers then had to salvage the show and find a replacement host. The call went out to T-Pain at 1am the morning of the show to fill the slot and the vocoder-loving singer went into cram mode to prepare for that evening.