Martin Lawrence Opens Up About Tisha Campbell’s Past Sexual Harassment Lawsuit
Martin Lawrence is opening up a little bit about the circumstances that surrounded the end of his hit TV show, “Martin.”
The actor sat down with GQ to chat about his upcoming film, Bad Boys For Life and also addressed the lawsuit that was filed against him back in the day by Martin co-star Tisha Campbell.
Back in 1997, Tisha accused Martin of sexual harassment and abuse on and off camera. She refused to film most of season five, which ended up being the final season of the show.
Martin took the time to clear the air about the impact the lawsuit had on the series, which many thought caused it to be canceled and as far as the allegations, “none of that was true.”
Here’s an excerpt of the interview:
You did the show for five seasons, right? How come it ended?
Well, how can I say this? It just was time to end. Let’s just put it that way. It was just, at that time, there was some, um, there were some things that was being said that—
You’re talking about Tisha Campbell’s lawsuit?
Yeah. Yeah.
I saw that you guys had been spending time together recently.
Yeah. Because none of that was true. It was all a lot of bulls–t and—
What was bulls–t?
Just whoever’s side it was, it was bulls–t.
Did you guys ever talk about it?
We don’t need to talk about something that just didn’t happen. So I just decided to walk away from the show. I just decided to end it. People said that I got canceled, but that wasn’t the case. I decided to just leave the show.
Let me ask the question a different way: Do you understand Tisha’s perspective differently now than you did then?
I love Tisha. I’ve seen her then and now, now and then, always with nothing but love. I have nothing but love for her, and I always have.
Reginald Ballard — who played the role of Bro Man — told VladTV that although Martin was cool with him, he did feel the tension on the set towards the end of the season.
The lawsuit, which was also against HBO Independent Productions, who Tisha claimed didn’t take her complaints seriously, all “resolved their differences” according to a Variety report from 1997.
Fast forward to now, Martin, Tisha, and other cast members of Martin have been spotted together an a few occasions.
Also, note that Tisha just recently filed for divorce from husband Duane Martin and moved out of their home where they raised their two sons.
They are also in the middle of a nasty divorce — so the timing kind of makes people wonder if Tisha’s relationship with Duane contributed to the tension that occurred on set — but all is well now and it seems like everyone has moved on… so we can too.
