Ice Cube says Chris Tucker turned down $12m for role in Friday movie sequel due to ‘religious reasons’

American rapper and actor, Ice Cube has explained why movie star, Chris Tucker turned down $12 million for a role in the sequel for ‘Friday’ movie.

The two Hollywood stars were casted together in the 1995 hit comedy movie, but Chris decided not to reprise his role as Smokey in the next two sequels – 2000′s Next Friday and 2002′s Friday After Next.

According to Ice Cube, he offered Chris Tucker $12 million to return on set but the Rush Hour star said he would not be starring in the sequel due to religious reasons.

He did not want to smoke and use swear words on camera as a result of his new spiritual path.

Ice Cube said; “We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons. He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”

Ice, who served as a producer on the Friday movies , stated this while responding to a fan that tweeted; “I thought I heard Chris Tucker quit over money”.

Chris, had in an interview with All Urban Central last month, reflected on his decision to not return for the Friday sequels.

“Back then, I gotta tell you, one of the reasons why I didn’t do the second one was because of the weed, because I said, man, that movie became a phenomenon. I don’t want everybody smoking weed — and I never really told people this because I kind of forgot about it, but it was one of the reasons why I didn’t do it.

Because I said, ‘I don’t wanna represent everybody smoking weed. And that’s one of the reasons why I said ‘nah.’ I didn’t wanna keep doing that character. It probably was good for me because it kept me moving to the next phase and next movies,” he explained.