Snoop Dogg has thanked those praying for his 24-year-old daughter as she recovers from a severe stroke, as he attended the world premiere of his upcoming film The Underdoggs.
Legions of fans waited for hours to get a glimpse of the Californian-born rapper and actor at the Culver Theatre in Los Angeles, where he took selfies to the delight of fans.
The premiere of the comedy sport film comes days after his daughter Cori Broadus, who he shares with wife Shante, shared her health scare on Instagram with her more than 650,000 followers.
“Thank y’all for praying for her, appreciate it,” he told the PA news agency on the purple carpet.
The comment came after Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, explained his new film is about “family, love and community”.
He stars as Jaycen “Two J’s” Jennings, an ex-professional American football star who has hit rock bottom and is sentenced to community service coaching the Underdoggs, an unruly children’s team in his hometown of Long Beach, California.
“The inspiration was my youth football league,” he told PA.
“I created a youth football league in 2005 and this movie is an inspirational piece from that, kids from my league who played inspired me to create this beautiful story, you get a beautiful ensemble of characters to come out and play.”
Snoop, who also serves as producer on the film, spoke about his relationship with co-star Tika Sumpter, years after appearing in US drama One Life To Live together.
He told PA: “It was beautiful because she played a character similar to my wife (in The Underdoggs), a love interest that can always keep me in control but it was a lost love from too many years ago so the fact that we’ve been friends that long (in real life) makes it more believable when we were on set.”
Sumpter described Snoop as “hilarious, makes me laugh all the time, giving and very kind”.
“(He) has been kind since I met him years ago…it was like family,” the 43-year-old told PA.
Speaking about her film character Cherise, she added: “It starts with the script and I thought Cherise was fantastic. I love it, boss lady, give it to me.
“She’s just this quiet force and you don’t reckon with her, but she’s the kindest human being, so I’m balancing being vulnerable but also don’t mess with me, and she’s the one person that can put Snoop or ‘Two J’s’ in his place.”
Snoop later praised the director Charles Stone who did an “amazing job” at finding the balance of comedy and “keeping it all together”.
Stone told PA: “It was my first time working with Snoop, we’ve known about each other but he was great. People probably don’t think of him as an actor but he was fantastic, totally present, ready to be directed, he understood the character really well, we spent a lot of time talking about that.
“He was also good at drawing from his own life experiences being a superstar himself, knowing a lot of these big superstar athletes, so that was wonderful. And he was really good with the kids, just so wonderfully present and he is like a big kid himself.”
The filmmaker later joked it was “cussing children” that drew him to become involved in the film, but that children are the “transformative element” of the film.
While composer Joseph Shirley, who has also composed the scores for Creed III and The Mandalorian, said he felt pressure given Snoop’s musical background.
“There were times where we gave a wink or a tip of the cap to his sound being the king of the West Coast, he and Dr Dre built a sound together and it meant a lot to the sound of this score. We wanted to pay homage to them.”
Snoop later responded to this, saying: “I love it. To be inspiring is a beautiful thing, for people to be inspired by you.”
Stars at the premiere also included Kal Penn, who plays Ryan Kauffman n the film, American football tight end Tony Gonzalez, who plays himself in the film, and Kandi Burruss as Judge Tara.
The Underdoggs is set for release on Prime Video film on January 26.