Millions of dollars couldn’t convince Chris Tucker to reprise his role as Smokey in Next Friday, according to Ice Cube.
Ice Cube explained why Chris Tucker didn’t appear in the Friday sequel via Twitter on Wednesday (December 29). After a fan suggested it was due to money, Ice Cube set the record straight in a quote tweet response.
“We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons,” he wrote. “He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”
Last month, Chris Tucker admitted the weed usage was one of his reasons for turning down the Next Friday gig. The comedian didn’t discuss money but revealed why he didn’t want to portray a smoker in an interview with the Flix Talk podcast.
“One of the reasons why I didn’t do the second one was because of the weed,” he told Flix Talk. “I said, ‘Man, that movie became a phenomenon. I don’t want everybody smoking weed.’ I never really told people this because I kind of forgot about it, but it was one of the reasons why I didn’t do it ‘cause I said I don’t wanna represent everybody smoking weed.”
The Friday franchise is currently in a state of disarray as Warner Bros. won’t allow Ice Cube to make a fourth film. But even if the long-discussed movie comes to fruition, Chris Tucker likely won’t be part of it.
“I probably won’t [do the movie] because I never want to shortchange my audience and my fans,” he told Shannon Sharpe on the Club Shay Shay podcast. “I know they want it because that’s what they know and love, and I’m glad they love it, but I don’t want to come back in something that I probably can’t do what they want me to do because I’ve grown. And not only grown, I’m different.”