*Comedian Bill Bellamy claims Martin Lawrence stole his famed Sheneneh character and used it on his hit series “Martin.”
Bellamy explained as much on his podcast “Top Billin’ with Bill Bellamy” featuring comedian Aries Spears, during which they discussed Lawrence allegedly stealing material from a former comedian named Derrick Fox, News One reports.
“Everybody in Jersey knew that when Derrick Fox did Chaunté, it was going to be pandemonium,” Bellamy said on the episode.
Bellamy claims when Lawrence saw Fox perform his Chaunté character in Jersey at Terminal D., he took the content and remixed it to create Sheneneh.
“Martin took a whole other level,” Bellamy said to Spears. “Derrick couldn’t go back and do it anymore.”
“Yeah, everybody gone say he doing Sheneneh,” Spears added. “When in reality he was doing Chaunté.”
According to Bellamy, Fox stopped doing comedy shortly after Sheneneh debuted on “Martin.”
Fox touched on the issue in a recent interview that Comedy Hype, News One reports.
“Chaunté was a character that Martin was very impressed with. He also talked to me about writing for his show that was going to be on Fox called ‘Martin.’ He was saying he wanted me to do Chauné on the show,” he explained.
“At some point, before we could do negotiations, he decided to do the character himself.,” Fox continued, according to News One. “I don’t fault him for that. Of course it was a little devasting to me back then.”
Fox added, “But I can honestly say I see the blessing in it because I didn’t end up getting typecast which I probably would have if I was featured doing that character on the ‘Martin’ show.”
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