Fired X-Men ’97 creator Beau DeMayo blasts Marvel, alleging “near criminal working conditions”

A week before the premiere of X-Men ’97, Marvel shockingly fired creator Beau DeMayo. At the time, it wasn’t entirely clear why DeMayo was fired from the series, but subsequent months have seen tensions rise between Marvel and the former showrunner. Marvel later claimed that DeMayo was fired following an internal investigation that turned up findings of an “egregious nature,” but DeMayo is fighting back.

Per Deadline, DeMayo claims the “allegations of egregious misconduct are false” before bashing Marvel for fostering a “toxic environment” and “near criminal working conditions” that “turns individuals against one another, stokes paranoia to ensure compliance.” DeMayo acknowledges that “personality conflicts happen” and that he wasn’t “everyone’s cup of team,” but claims that the real issue Marvel has was him “being gay, Black and open about it at Marvel Studios.“

“The rumors being spread around me online are lies, and they are offensive, but more concerning is that they’re a smear campaign designed to discredit my credibility in order to cover up the egregious prejudicial misconduct stretching from select crew members on X-Men ’97, all the way all the way to the top at Marvel Studios,” DeMayo said. “In the end, the offenses Marvel and others have leaked are designed to distract you from what really offended them. 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.“

He’s also going to court to have an “illegal non-disparagement provision” removed from his exit package documents and to keep his “bonus and writing credits.” Attorney Bryan Freedman said, “There are only two possible explanations for why Marvel and Disney had Beau sign an NDA that so obviously violated basic California law. Either incredulously Marvel and Disney’s hundreds of lawyers who advise over 250,000 employees all just happened to make a mistake or Marvel knowingly and intentionally attempted to silence Beau so they could have total control as to why he was no longer at Marvel, why he had his credits removed on season 2 and why he was uninvited to attend the very award show that nominated his hard work for an Emmy.“

DeMayo also claims he has “the receipts and the eyewitnesses so long as you stop coercing them to lie, you can keep attacking me with lies and misinformation, but we can become the ugliest, most annoying version of that of that … or you can start acting like a studio that is worthy of a show like X Men ‘97.” Now, I’m no big city country lawyer, but I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this.