Nearly two years after suing Marvel, Beau DeMayo has opened up about the alleged treatment he endured leading up to his March 2024 termination.
The X-Men ’97 creator, who was ousted from the show ahead of its premiere, claimed he was “very honest” about his OnlyFans work with Marvel Studios Animation, adding that he felt like a “DEI hire” during his tenure with the MCU.
“It was cleared,” DeMayo told Vanity Fair. “It was like, ‘It is your personal life. As long as you’re not advertising the show on your OnlyFans, as long as you’re keeping it very separate from the content of the show, it’s outside of their purview.’
Recalling comments like, “oh, you don’t look like a showrunner,” and “you don’t look like a writer,” DeMayo explained, “There was that vibe that I was the DEI hire, where, ‘Oh, they just got a gay Black guy because he checks all the marks and it’s X-Men.'”
In addition to earning a Season 2 renewal for X-Men ’97 before the first even premiered, DeMayo was asked to punch up the ultimately doomed Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali.
“Some of those racist, sexist, homophobic vibes that I was getting before Blade became much more explicit,” said DeMayo of returning to X-Men ’97.
DeMayo abruptly exited as head writer of the Disney+/Marvel series in March 2024, ahead of its premiere. At the time, he had completed writing Seasons 1 and 2 of the animated series, which premiered to strong reviews.
Later that year, DeMayo claimed Marvel notified him that they “stripped my Season 2 credits” over a piece of X-Men fan art he posted for Pride Month. “Sadly, this is the latest in a troubling pattern I suffered through while on working on #XMen97 and #Blade,” he wrote on social media at the time.
Following DeMayo’s claims, a Marvel spokesperson said in a statement, “Mr. DeMayo was terminated in March 2024 following an internal investigation. Given the egregious nature of the findings, we severed ties with him immediately and he has no further affiliation with Marvel.”
The company would not comment further. According to Marvel sources, DeMayo was investigated for alleged sexual misconduct, and the credit removal was due to breaches of the two sides’ separation agreement.
In September 2024, DeMayo called the allegations “false” after his attorney Bryan Freedman called out Disney’s “repetitive illegal pattern” in a statement. “Once it gets challenged or exposed, the gaslighting and redirection of the blame toward anyone willing to tell the truth starts through an international well oiled publicity machine,” he said in August 2024.
“Beau DeMayo wants nothing from Marvel/Disney except the truth,” added Freedman. “He will bravely tell the truth. So will I. Stand by.”
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