Marlon Wayans Opens Up About Emotional Breakdown Over Late Parents During Stand-Up Special
Veteran comedian Marlon Wayans is getting real about his emotional journey in his latest special, “Good Grief.” In it, he dives deep into the process of grieving his parents and the poignant lesson he learned along the way.
In a recent interview with Lewis Howes on “The School of Greatness,” the 52-year-old actor chatted about his new Prime Video stand-up special. He opened up about how he went from discussing the heartache of losing his parents, Howell Wayans and Elvira Alethia, to making jokes about his final moments with them. At one point, he had a breakthrough realization, “I was running from my own pain,” he admitted.
As the star recalled, he “broke down onstage” while talking about his late mother. Ultimately, he decided not to cut that part out of the final footage.
“I broke down. I cried,” the “Naked” star shared. "Because the reality of my parents being gone hit me. It did [hit me before] but it wasn’t supposed to hit me in a show when I’m filming a special. And it did and I was like, aright cool. I was going to 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 and we still look for smiles. I get so many messages in my inbox about Good Grief on Amazon Prime, about how it affected them, how it helped them, helped them grieve. They lost their parents too, we’re in the same club, gang gang. And how they cried with me and 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. So, that’s healing.”
Marlon’s mother passed away in 2020 at the age of 82, followed by the death of his father three years later.
Today, the “Respect” actor shares that he no longer “cries about them a lot,” having entered a new phase in his ongoing journey with grief.
