John Witherspoon’s funeral at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California last week drew hundreds of mourners, many of them his famous friends.
Ice Cube, who was Witherspoon’s colorful co-star in the Friday film franchise, delivered a moving speech during the service, explaining why he wanted Witherspoon to be in the original Friday movie.
“The reason I wanted him to play my father is because he reminds me of my real father, but my real father isn’t as funny,” he said. “He reminded me of my real father and I knew if we got John Witherspoon — this is before we decided to get Chris Tucker — the movie would be funny no matter who else we got in it.”
He continued, “When he said yeah, it was one of the happiest moments … we knew we had anchor. We knew we had somebody who was 10 times funnier than us.”
Cube also revealed why Last Friday hasn’t been made.
AD LOADING...
“I really apologize to my friend for not getting the next Friday movie made,” he said. “It’s not my fault. Some dumbass people in Hollywood at New Line Cinema, if you wanna … you can email Toby Emmerich and Richard Brener if you feel like I feel. Yeah, you punks had two scripts and you didn’t wanna do them.
“That’s the real. We were tryin’ to make that movie for years and we couldn’t get it done. We got the other three and we got our memories.”
Last Fridaywas expected to be the fourth installment in the franchise. In May, Cube revealed the script was done and Witherspoon had agreed to reprise his role as “Pops.” In the wake of his death, the movie’s fate has yet to be determined.
Watch Cube’s full speech above.
