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USA – 2014 Bonnaroo Music Festival

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If you’re a fan of the 1995 classic comedy Friday, you’ve probably wondered why one of the film’s most notable stars, comedian Chris Tucker, who played the character “Smokey,” wasn’t in any of the sequels. Well, on Wednesday, legendary rapper and Friday creator Ice Cube said his piece on the subject after comedian Faizon Love, who played “Big Worm” in the movie, talked about how little the actors in the film got paid—which, of course, he went about in his usual messy way.

According to HypeBeast, Friday “was dubbed as a cultural phenomenon and grossed over nine times its budget of $3 million USD. At the box office, it made over $27 million USD,” which paved the way for sequels Next Friday and Friday After Next. It’s worth mentioning that a final sequel, Last Friday, was expected to be in the making, but Cube revealed back in July that conflicts between him and Warner Bros. Studios over the script have the future film in limbo it may never be freed from.

Anyway, Love said he turned down a role in Next Friday because he only made $2,500 on the first movie, which of course led to people and their opinions speculating that Cube did the Friday cast dirty and was more of a crook than a filmmaker.

So, of course, the Lethal Injection rapper had to respond.

“I didn’t rob no f***** body,” he tweeted. “The 1995 Friday movie cost $2.3m to make. Shot it in 20 days. Fazion worked 1 day, maybe 2. All the actors got paid scale to do the movie. They could’ve simply said ‘No’ but they didn’t. So miss me with that s***.”

Additionally, Cube addressed the notion that Tucker declined the sequels over money saying he was willing to pay the Rush Hour actor “$10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons.”

“He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore,” he continued.

While Tucker hasn’t commented on the subject recently, he did speak on it back in January, and, for the most part, what he said appears to align with what Cube is saying now.

“It’s one of those things—it was just a small movie,” Tucker said. “We filmed it in 20 days. I got about $10K for it or whatever, I didn’t care. I wanted the opportunity.”

As for why he declined the sequels, Tucker said he didn’t want to “shortchange my audience and my fans” by playing a character that didn’t align with who he was currently and who he wanted to be.

“I can’t do what I did when I watch Friday now,” he said “I can’t do that. I was where I was when I was acting but now I’m in my 40’s now. I can do something even better!”

So basically, Craig ain’t got to lie, and it looks like the rapper-turned-actor and filmmaker who played him was telling the truth too.

Now, about that last sequel…

Ice Cube Sets The Record Straight On ‘Friday’, Chris Tucker & How He ‘Didn’t Rob No F*ckin’ Body’  was originally published on hiphopwired.com