Comedian and actor Marlon Wayans claims film producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein “raped” him “businesswise” by removing him from the Scary Movie franchise, which he created with his brothers.
Harvey, a convicted rapist with dozens of sexual assault and harassment accusations, and his brother, Bob, are proof that “monsters showed up in business as well,” Wayans told the New York Times’ David Marchese in an interview released Saturday.
The original 2000 Scary Movie was co-written by Marlon and his brother, Shawn Wayans; directed by their older brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans; and produced by Dimension Films, an arm of the Weinstein brothers’ Miramax Films.
After the spoof comedy earned massive success, the Wayanses returned for a sequel but were abruptly “shut out of their own franchise,” starting with Scary Movie 3, Indie Wire reported.
When Marchese asked the actor if Miramax’s recent announcement of the sixth installment of Scary Movie irritated him, Wayans initially brushed it off before the interviewer asked if he still got paid for those movies.
“No, that’s a whole ’nother conversation. I like to say that, you know, those Weinsteins, they raped everybody,” Wayans said.
“Not the same, not the same,” Marchese responded quickly.
“Businesswise,” Wayans clarified. “Literally and businesswise. We all got a little taste. They were some terrible people.”
Marchese then asked Wayans how he decides whether or not to tell an offensive joke, to which the comedian replied that he considers the audience, before returning to the Weinstein joke.
“I was gonna say: he didn’t just rape women; he raped [expletive] too. We did business with him,” the actor said.
Marchese responded with “Oof.”
“When you’ve been in a situation — I can talk about things from a different perspective,” Wayans explained. “When I talk about Bob and Harvey and I say that, it’s because there’s damage there. Because we have been victims but in business, not physically. I think a monster is a monster, and those monsters showed up in business, as well.”
While Bob Weinstein has denied that he maliciously removed the Wayans brothers from the series, Marlon told Variety in 2020 that the Weinsteins are an “evil regime” and “not the best or the kindest people to be in business with.”
The comedian’s latest comments came just nine days after the shocking overturn of Weinstein’s New York rape conviction due to legal errors.
Weinstein remains in prison because of another rape conviction out of Los Angeles, California.
