Mike Epps speaks on why the Richard Pryor biopic never happened.
During his appearance on the All The Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, the actor explained what happened. “I was gonna play Richard Pryor and I didn’t screw his ex-wife and she got mad,” he said jokingly.
He continued with the joking matter, “You’re not gonna play Richard, you didn’t spank this a**. I said, ‘Nope, I ain’t playing Richard Pryor then.” He added, “She gon’ sue me for this. ‘You’re going to People’s Court n***a.”
The comedian also talked about attending Pryor’s funeral in 2005 after he passed away from a heart attack. He recalled being disappointed that Pryor’s friends didn’t speak at the funeral, mostly the late Paul Mooney.
Epps also shared that on the night of the funeral, Pryor’s ex-wife said that she believed that he wasn’t ready to play her late ex-husband. “I told her, ‘Look here, I love Richard Pryor. I love him to death,’” he said. “But my kids don’t know who he is. If you’re gonna see a Richard Pryor movie with me in it, you’re going to see Mike Epps play Richard Pryor.”
Do you think that Mike Epps should have played Richard Pryor in a biopic?