Ice Cube Confirms Vax Requirement Spurred Exit From Sony Comedy ‘Oh Hell No’

Matt Grobar
·2 min read
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Ice Cube has confirmed that he exited Oh Hell No, a Sony comedy in which he would have starred opposite Jack Black, after refusing to comply with a requirement that he be vaccinated against Covid-19.

“I turned down a movie because I didn’t want to get the motherf-cking jab. I turned down $9 million because I didn’t want to get the jab,” he said during an episode of the podcast Million Dollaz Worth of Game published on Monday. “F-ck that jab, and f-ck y’all for trying to make me get it. So, I don’t know how Hollywood feels about me right now.”

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Ice Cube then went on to clarify that he didn’t actually “turn down” the acting job and the paycheck accompanying it, instead being forced out of the project when he declined to get vaccinated. “Those motherf-ckers didn’t give it to me because I wouldn’t get the shot. I didn’t turn it down. They just wouldn’t give it to me,” he said. “The Covid shot, the jab…I didn’t need it. I didn’t catch that sh-t at all. Nothing. F-ck ’em. I didn’t need that sh-t.”

Reports of Ice Cube’s Oh Hell No exit first emerged back in October of 2021. The film that at that point had Bad Trip‘s Kitao Sakurai attached to direct would have told the story of Sherman (Black), watching what transpired when he fell in love with the mother of his friend, Will (Ice Cube). The latter, of course, had only one thing to say about the prospect: “Oh hell no.”

While it looked at the time Ice Cube’s departure that Sony might try to salvage the film, there have been no new developments on the project thus far. Scot Armstrong, Tracy Oliver, Jessica Gao and Rodney Rothman scripted the film, which Matt Tolmach was set to produce via his Matt Tolmach Productions banner, with Black and Roz Music. Brittany Morrissey had been set to oversee it for the studio.

Ice Cube most recently starred alongside Dakota Johnson and Tracee Ellis Ross in Focus Features’ The High Note, which was released in May of 2020. While it’s not yet clear when he’ll again be seen on screen, his company Cube Vision signed a multi-picture production deal with Luminosity Entertainment in May, which will have the companies co-producing film and TV projects including the comedy Cube in My Head.

Ice Cube’s comments on the situation surrounding Oh Hell No came an hour and 11 minutes into his appearance on Million Dollaz Worth of Game, which you can view in full above.

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