When Wayans joined SNL, he didn’t have much experience on screen, except for a role in Beverly Hills Cop alongside Eddie Murphy who shared some advice after his exit from the sketch show.
“Eddie’s advice to me was, ‘Write your own sketches. Otherwise, they’re gonna give you some Black people s*** to do, and you ain’t gonna like it,” Wayans recalled.
The comedian said that he tried to pitch his characters on the show, “but they would shoot my ideas down,” adding, “Everything Eddie said came true. They started writing me in their sketches.”
Wayans said they were giving him stereotypical roles and, at times, had to put his foot down, saying, “I’m like, ‘Hell no.’ I said, ‘Listen, my mother’s gonna watch this show. I can’t do this. I won’t do this.'”
Although he fought to hard against playing Black stereotypes, he leaned into a gay stereotype for a sketch that ultimately got him fired.
In Episode 12 of the season, Wayans and co-star Randy Quaid played cops in the “Mr. Monopoly” sketch. During rehearsal, Wayans played the character as the writers envisioned it, but during the live show, he went off script and played the character as an effeminate gay stereotype.
Guest host Griffin Dunne said, “I thought it was weird, but people still laughed. And then Lorne fired him pretty much as he walked off the stage.”
Wayans added, “I snapped. I just did not care. I purposefully did that because I wanted [Michaels] to fire me.”
Lorne Michaels said firing Wayans was “really, really hard, but it had to be done.”
