Comedian Mike Epps is coming under fire, for making some rather crass comments about the widow of the late comedic great Richard Pryor, Media Take Out has learned.
Mike revealed the backstory to his appearance (or lack thereof) on the Richard Pryor biopic, on Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on their “All the Smoke” podcast. During the interview, Mike claimed things went south with Jennifer Lee Pryor because he refused to sleep with her.
Mike said, said, “I was gonna play Richard Pryor man, and then his wife—I didn’t screw his wife, his ex-wife and she got mad.”
Now Jennifer Lee Pryor is fighting back.
The widow told the Daily Beast she’s now working on the film project with Black-ishcreator Kenya Barris. “We haven’t casted it yet,” she added.
She claims that she didn’t want Epps to play the role was because she wasn’t a fan of his portrayal in HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty series. “He played Richard like a homeless junkie,” she said. “It was horrible.”
“Mike’s played Richard in a couple of different movies and films, little cameos here and there, and that’s the extent of Mike playing Richard,” Lee Pryor, who controls her late husband’s estate, went on to say. “I don’t know why he wants to pick a flight with me and why he would say that [I wanted to sleep with him]. I wouldn’t touch his dick with a 10-foot pole.”
