Update 12/29/2021 9:54pm:
Faizon Love took to Instagram to address the backlash over his remarks about what Ice Cube paid him for his role as Big Worm. Faizon wanted to make sure to clear the air by contextualizing the whole thing:
"First of all I not only consider Ice Cube a comrade but my brother and I'm still a fan I think he's One of the dopest niggas to ever touch a mic. I guess it's a slow news week so let me say what I got paid is a moot point, it was the price of admission to a game . I have zero regrets. Actually , I want to take this time to thank Cube Dj Pooh and Felix Gary Grey for letting me be apart of such an iconic picture. I truly have nothing but love For these brothers."
Original 12/29/2021 11:54am:
Ice Cube took to Twitter on Wednesday (December 29) to address a recent interview Faizon Love did with "Comedy Hype," where he said he was paid $2,500 for his role as Big Worm in Friday.
After Faizon stated that he was offered "double-scale" pay at $5,000 to reprise his role in Next Friday, which led to him turning down the offer to appear in The Replacements for $100,000, Ice Cube addressed the situation on Twitter. He wrote, "I didn’t rob no f**kin body. 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 sh*t…"
When one Twitter user claimed that they heard Chris Tucker didn't reprise his role because of pay, Ice Cube also addressed that situation. He wrote, "We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $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."
Chris Tucker stated in an interview earlier this year that he didn't reprise his role as Smokey in the other Friday films because he didn't want to be known as the weed-smoking character. He explained, "I don’t want to represent everyone smokin' weed. I kinda made it more personal than a movie, and that’s one of the reasons I said, 'Nah, I don't want to keep doing that character.'"
