Yahoo Lifestyle Beau DeMayo Accuses Marvel and Disney of ‘Egregious Prejudicial Misconduct’ on ‘X-Men ’97’ and ‘Blade’
Beau DeMayo, the creator and executive producer of the Marvel Animation series “X-Men ’97,” accused Marvel and Disney of “egregious prejudicial misconduct” in a 30-minute video he posted on Wednesday to his OnlyFans profile.
DeMayo was fired by Marvel on the eve of “X-Men ’97’s” series premiere on Disney+ in March, but the studio declined to comment on the reasons for his removal until August, following an accusation from DeMayo that he was stripped his credits for Season 2 of the show after he posted fan art of himself shirtless as the X-Men character Cyclops in June for gay pride. Following that allegation, Marvel released a statement that DeMayo was terminated due to the “egregious nature” of findings in an “internal investigation.” A source with knowledge of that investigation further told Variety it was for sexual misconduct, and that DeMayo’s credits were stripped because he violated the terms of his termination agreement.
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“These allegations of egregious misconduct are false,” DeMayo says in the video, adding that rumors of the nature of DeMayo’s alleged misconduct that have been floated on various sites and podcasts are “lies.”
“They are offensive,” DeMayo continues. “But more concerning is that they’re a smear campaign designed to discredit my credibility in order to cover up egregious prejudicial misconduct stretching from select crew members on ‘X Men ’97’ all the way to the top of Marvel Studios.”
DeMayo alleges that he both experienced and witnessed misconduct while working on “X-Men ’97” in his capacity as showrunner, and during a brief stint as a screenwriter on the long-in-the-works feature film “Blade,” set to star Mahershala Ali.
A spokesperson for Marvel Studios did not respond to a request for comment.
DeMayo says that the “breaches” in his exit agreement were posts he made about “X-Men ’97” during its run, including posting fan art, speaking at a screening of the show at a bar, highlighting different cast and crew and explaining how the massacre at the LGBTQ nightclub Pulse in 2016 was one of the main inspirations for an episode involving a surprise attack on the mutant nation of Genosha.
He also alleged that Disney blacklisted him from “third party, non-Disney Comic-Con panels” and blocking him from attending the Emmys next week, where “X-Men ’97” is nominated for best animated series.
While he did not refer to anyone by name, DeMayo also outlined several specific allegations of misconduct against Marvel and Disney executives and employees that range widely in severity and magnitude. They include:
DeMayo alleges that his identity as a gay, Black man was “weaponized by Marvel execs and select crew members to undermine me” and use “the same dog-whistling stereotypes favored by bigots for decades: He’s big, he’s intimidating, to opinionated, angry, emotional, flamboyant, dramatic, a pervert.”
DeMayo alleges that he fought Marvel executives over his desire to adapted storylines from previously published X-Men comic book runs rather than create brand new stories for the show, as they desired, and he was called “uncolaborative, too difficult and too much of a fanboy.” “They openly resented me fighting for the fans,” he says.
DeMayo alleges that executives “painted” him as “abusive” when he declined to have the character of Jubilee “make gang signs or pain the sky with plasmoids in the shape of middle fingers.”
DeMayo alleges there are “near criminal working conditions” for VFX and animation artists at Marvel, and that people who worked on “X-Men ’97” were “rapidly losing weight [and] having mental breakdowns,” and when he emailed Marvel leadership about these issues, he experienced “retaliation.”
DeMayo notified a producer on “X-Men ’97” that “one of our leads is having a potentially exploitative sexual relationship with a PA,” and the producer buried his report and informed the individual in question of DeMayo’s complaint.
The same producer on “X-Men ’97” “repeatedly” joked to crew that he showed DeMayo’s “thirst traps on Instagram to his underage son, and his kid is wondering, ‘Do they need to buy me shirts for Christmas?”
An artist on “X-Men ’97” “repeatedly denounce[d] all men as jerks,” and accused DeMayo of “failing the cause” because he kept a male character, Cyclops, as leader of the X-Men.
A lead artist on the show told DeMayo at a company barbecue in 2021 “that her husband felt that I must get a lot of dick based upon how I look.”
When DeMayo requested contacting producers of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” about promoting “X-Men ’97,” he was told “by Marvel that they wouldn’t want to alienate certain audiences.”
Marvel’s PR department listed “homosexuality as a hot button issue to avoid alongside school shootings, the Gaza conflict and abortion.”
Marvel executives joked in front of DeMayo that they’d hired “a young Wesley Snipes” to write on “Blade.” (“One of the reasons I wanted to do this video is so that you can see that Wesley Snipes and I look nothing alike,” he adds.)
DeMayo says “the last straw” for him was when he arrived at the production offices of “Blade” in Atlanta and was told “that someone needed to crack the whip around here.” He alleges that on Sept. 6, 2022, he sent his concerns about what he saw as prejudicial conditions on the film to leadership at Marvel and “in return, I was removed from the project in the middle of moving to Atlanta for production, and then had my role on Season 2 of ‘X Men ’97’ aggressively marginalized.”
DeMayo says he has “the receipts and eyewitnesses” to back up his claims, and rather than dump them on the internet, he would prefer to relay them to authorities at Marvel and Disney “so that those responsible are able to receive what I was not a full and fair investigation away from the public eye.”
“This is me trying to do the right thing,” he says. “And this is Marvel’s chance to do the same.”
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