Ice Cube responds to accusations he ‘robbed’ Faison Love over salary for 1995 hit film Friday

Ice Cube has addressed criticism over Faizon Love’s salary in the 1995 movie Friday.

On 22 December, Comedy Hype released a six-minute snippet from an interview with Love, who played the character of Big Worm in Friday, which also starred Ice Cube and Chris Tucker.

During the clip, Love revealed that he was paid $2,500 (£1,854) for the hit film, which produced two sequels, Next Friday (2000) and Friday After Next (2002).

Shortly after the video was released, listeners hit out at Ice Cube for “short-changing” his co-star.

Responding to a tweet accusing him of “robbing his own people”, the 53-year-old rapper said: “I didn’t rob no f***ing body.”

Ice Cube – who co-wrote Friday and played Craig Jones in the cult classic comedy – explained that all the actors were paid based on the number of days they worked.

He wrote: “Shot it in 20 days. Fazion worked 1 day, maybe 2. All the actors got paid scale to do the movie.

“They could’ve simple said ‘No’ but they didn’t. So miss me with that shit.”

When Love was asked whether he felt his pay was justified, especially considering how iconic his character became, the 53-year-old said: “It wasn’t iconic back then.”

He also said that he was not “bitter” about his salary, explaining that no one working on Friday knew how big the film would become.

Amid the backlash against Ice Cube, Love posted a picture of himself with Ice Cube and American record producer Mark Jordan or DJ Pooh (who is credited as a writer for Friday) on Wednesday (29 December).

Reiterating that he had no qualms with the makers of Friday over his pay cheque, Love captioned the Instagram post: “Let me say what I got paid is a moot point, it was the price of admission to a game. I have zero regrets.

“I want to take this time to thank Cube, Dj Pooh and Felix Gary Grey for letting me be apart of such an iconic picture.”

During the interview, Love also revealed Tucker was paid $10,000 (£7,422) to star as Craig’s weed-smoking best friend in Friday.

However, Tucker did not reprise his role in the film’s sequels.

In the same Twitter thread addressing concerns over the cast’s pay, Ice Cube said Tucker quit the franchise “for religious reasons.”

“He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore,” Ice Cube said.