Comedy icon Damon Wayans bared it all in a candid interview with CBS Sunday Mornings this past weekend.
While promoting his new sitcom, Poppa’s House, which premieres on CBS Monday (October 21), Wayans opened up about filming My Wife & Kids during his 2000 divorce from his ex-wife, Lisa Thorner, whom he married in 1984.
The ex-spouses share four kids including, Damon Wayans Jr. 41, Michael 39, Cara Mia, 37, and Kyla, 33.
“People don’t know I was going through a divorce when we started My Wife & Kids,” Wayans revealed. Asked if it was painful, the TV producer responded, “No. Comedians live for that.”
“It’s like, I get into a car accident, and I go up onstage and I talk about my neck hurting and people are laughing, my neck doesn’t hurt as much,” he continued.
It’s a formula that’s taken the Lethal Weapon star from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of success. The House of Payne star has raised a family, had grandkids, and along the way found peace,
“I’ve reached an age where I’m content,” he said.
“I got tired of chasing happy. Because happy is fleeting. There’s nothing I need except my health and well-being. And guess what? Happy moved in next door to me. Now every day is just, like, a blessing. Ten grandkids, one great-grandkid. Life. Does it get better? It doesn’t!”
Wayans’ new sitcom Poppa’s House sees him playing a divorced talk radio host whose world gets shaken up when a new female co-host is hired and as he parents his adult son (played by Damon Wayans Jr.), a brilliant dreamer trying to pursue his passion while being a responsible father and husband.
“Most of the shows we’ve done so far are based in something that really happened to myself, or to Junior, or to somebody in the writer’s room, like my family,” Wayans told Blavity ahead of the show’s premiere.
“The script is just a blueprint so that we have a structure. But for the most part, it’s a trust exercise between he and I, where I know that if I say something, I’m going to set him up for a joke, and he knows how to say something to set me up for a joke, and we just build on whatever comes out of our faces.”
