Comedian and actor Marlon Wayans, who’s known for being out of the spotlight unless he’s out promoting a new special or film, has been the talk of the timelines recently—and for a good reason.
As previously reported by The Root, the “White Chicks” star and popular hiphop talk show host DJ Vlad got into into a public, online spat back in August after Vlad tried to clown the comedian and drag him online for trying to charge him $40,000 for an interview. The joke was ultimately turned on Vlad himself when Wayans subsequently clapped back at him on everything from his lack of professionalism, his looks, to how he’s “hated” within the Black community and looked down upon as a culture vulture. Due to that back-and-forth, it went without saying that Wayans would never grace Vlad with his presence or grant him an interview—money or no money.
However, as often happens when someone tries to play in your face, the tide turned for the “Little Man” star in the weeks since that online argument and he’s been popping up in interview after interview ever since. Most recently, he sat down with NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal for an interview on “The Big Podcast with Shaq.” The current number of views sit over 600,000. Most notably, he went on Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” podcast where he talked about everything from infamous Diddy parties to losing his parents . The current views for that interview are sitting pretty at 8.3 million.
As the success of Wayan’s interviews began to circulate, people online began praising the comedian for being deliciously petty for going on a media blitz—and intentionally refusing to grant an interview with Vlad.
“Marlon Wayans is my type of petty. He said I’m gonna do everybody’s interview—but yours. And all these interviews are doing numbers. He just posted a picture with Shaq, he’s doing Shaq’s podcast. He did Shannon Sharpe’s podcast. I think he did “The Breakfast Club.” You gotta go find you somebody else, leech,” said TikTok user Casanova Brown.
“Marlon is ‘I can show you better than I can tell you’ personified,” commented one user under the video.
Added another, “Vlad really underestimated how much the world loves Marlon Wayans. Marlon Wayans stays out the spotlight by choice not the other way around.”
“I am so happy Marlon Wayans didn’t go on Vlad. I hope others follow suit,” said comedian KevOnStage on X/Twitter.
Vlad tried to tell Marlon Wayans what he was worth and how he doesn’t get views. Marlon’s Club Shay Shay interview is over 1M views in 24 hours,” wrote another.
“Vlad, what an absolute LOSS for you. You told this man he wasn’t worth what he was asking for, meanwhile, it was worth so much more. The Wayans family isn’t Black Hollywood royalty. The Wayans family is a Hollywood dynasty,” said another.
“I love how Black folk united to let Vlad know we don’t play about the entire Wayans family, and we especially do not play about Marlon,” said author and multi-genre theologian Candice Benbow.