X-Men ’97 is considered to be one of the best things to come out of Marvel in a long time, but the show has been shrouded in controversy after the firing of showrunner Beau DeMayo a few weeks before the premiere of the show.
Since then, it had seemed that Marvel and DeMayo had been feuding online about why he was fired from the show, and though DeMayo had been pretty vague with the reason why he was removed, he has now come out to talk about exactly what kind of beef he was with the huge studio.
Beau DeMayo Hits Back at Marvel
According to Deadline, DeMayo has revealed in a 30-minute video on his OnlyFans exactly how Marvel has been playing dirty when it came to his reputation, from spreading lies about him and saying that they had criminal working conditions when he was still going to their offices.
“In the end, the offenses Marvel and others have leaked are designed to distract you from what really offended them,” said DeMayo, “Someone like me dared to speak truth to people like them. They wanted me to be the Black stamp of approval on this project, I declined. They wanted to erase aspects of my personality that clashed or proved inconvenient with the misguided narratives they wanted to establish. I declined. They tried to intimidate me with both explicit and implied threats. I was not intimidated. Everything they have done since then has been designed not just to silence me and smear me, but to crush me and to remind me to know my role.”
A lot of people assumed that the reason why DeMayo has been so careful with his statements after his firing was because he had to sign an NDA with Marvel—which is considered to be legally bulletproof. Now DeMayo’s lawyer is saying that the NDA that DeMayo was forced to sign by Disney has ‘obviously violated basic California law.’
Who Should People Believe?
As far as people know online, word had been going around that DeMayo was fired for inappropriate behavior in the office, and he was allegedly sending suggestive imagery of himself in superhero poses to select people in his creative team.
Before that, word was also going around that he had been a nightmare to work with on the show.
With Disney definitely having a lot of pull when it comes to social media, it would definitely make sense that they would have enough resources to have a smear campaign on DeMayo; but on the other hand, some have been saying that DeMayo releasing his statement for his OnlyFans subscribers was kind of him just capitalizing on this public feud with Marvel.
So far, DeMayo and his team haven’t named names when it comes to their lawsuit, but they are expected to call them out should things get further.
In the meantime, people are still heads-or-tails about the whole situation. Is DeMayo really telling the truth and Marvel is making him look like the bad guy? Or is he really just creating all this drama while the spotlight is on him?
While it’s been clear that there are some fans that have been supportive of DeMayo, there are those who think that he shouldn’t have kept his ‘receipts’ behind a paywall if he really wanted the truth to come out.
Then again, it could be considered that the smart move would be to keep his ‘receipts’ private until things push forward legally, because then the lawyers at Marvel would have more things to work on should they know what angle DeMayo is going for.
That’s why he hasn’t specifically named anyone in the lawsuit as well.
One thing’s for sure, X-Men ’97 was a great show, and DeMayo was an integral part in pulling that off. Fans can catch the series now streaming on Disney+.