Marlon Wayans Almost Cut This Moment From His New Special

Comedian Marlon Wayans says he nearly cut the moment he began crying on stage while filming his latest comedy special, "Good Grief," in which he talks about the deaths of his parents.

During an appearance on Lewis Howes' School of Greatness podcast this week, Wayans, 52, recalled the point in the special when he began crying after telling jokes about changing his parents' diapers. Wayans lost his mother, Elvira Alethia, in July 2020 at age 81, and his father, Howell Stouten, in April 2023 at age 86.

"I was running from my own pain. And I was talking about my mother and I just started [crying]. I broke down. On stage," Wayans said on the podcast. "Cause the reality of my parents being gone hit me."

Although some time had passed, and he had previously shared that he was hit hard by his parents' deaths, he said it "wasn't supposed to hit me in a show when I'm filming a special."

"And it did. And I was like, alright cool. And I was gonna cut that out, but I was like, 'No. Keep it in. Because I need people to understand that I — like you — I'm hurting.' But life goes on," he said.

Others who are grieving may recognize the way it can keep hitting out of nowhere, even after time and healing. Wayans said he's received "so many messages" from people who say "Good Grief," which is streaming on Prime Video, helped them grieve, and that they even "cried with" him as they watched.

"They thanked me because they were in a place of depression and I helped them see their way out. Because I showed myself my way out," he said.

Wayans previously told people in May that he had fallen into a deep depression, but that his mother "taught me to take my broken heart and turn it into art and so that's what I did."

"After my mom's death I gained 25 lbs. I was shrinking, I was heavy, and I wasn't myself. And then I was just hurt. So when my dad passed, I was like, 'All right, let me put these pieces of my broken self back together," he told the outlet.

Story via TMX