‘Martin’ Actor Calls Out Martin Lawrence for Alleged Past Mistreatment
Martin has been touted as one of the best TV comedies ever, but actor Chris Williams says his experience on the show wasn’t so glowing.
Williams had a bit role in an episode of Martin, playing a thief who was attacked by Otis the security guard (Lawrence). Looking back at his experience on the show, Williams claims he allegedly had real-life problems with Lawrence, whom he called “egomaniacal” and seriously “unprofessional” to work with on social media.
Chris Williams’ comments on Martin Lawrence are heated
Williams shared his experience in an Instagram post that went viral on Twitter in mid-May. “This was one of my first guest star roles back in the ‘90s on MARTIN,” he captioned a clip of the fight scene. “It was an interesting experience for many reasons: I auditioned and got the job, but on the DAY I was shooting, I had to have a ‘extra’ audition JUST for the egomaniacal Martin Lawrence.”
Williams said that while he was “confused,” he just went along with it. But he claimed Lawrence continued to act “rudely,” pointing to a situation where he allegedly snapped at a water boy for making a mistake. “I had never seen a ‘star’ treat people so rudely. The piece de resistance came when shooting the scene you see here,” Williams continued.
Williams said Lawrence hurt him so badly during the scene that he “was dazed and confused and almost had a concussion.” When they took a break, he says someone told him, “Don’t worry about him. You are just being too funny.” On the second try, Williams tried to better shield himself but said he faced similar hurdles.
“This was my first lesson in my acting career that you need to take care of yourself and speak up when someone does something unprofessional. Which I did not. I didn’t know any better. I’ll never forget that day and as you can tell I am NOT a fan of his,” he added.
Showbiz Cheat Sheet reached out to representatives for Lawrence for comment on the claims but did not hear back by the time of publication.
It’s not the first time Martin Lawrence has been called out by an actor on the show
Lawrence has also been in drama with his co-star Tisha Campbell (Gina). Per The Los Angeles Times, Campbell filed a lawsuit against him in 1997 for sexual harassment, which he denied. She also left the show for a brief time, and when she returned, she reportedly refused to appear in any scenes with Lawrence. The show ended the same year.
Revisiting the drama, Lawrence called it “a lot of bullsh*t” in a 2020 interview with GQ. Asked if he and Campbell had ever talked about it, he added: “We don’t need to talk about something that just didn’t happen. So I just decided to walk away from the show. I just decided to end it. People said that I got canceled, but that wasn’t the case. I decided to just leave the show.”
The two reunited in 2018, which Campbell called “amazing” in an episode of The Real.
