The past few years haven’t been a smooth ride for Katt Williams, needless to say, but this month he’s back with new jokes, a new film, and a new attitude that the drama must be gone.
Since he stepped into the limelight over a decade ago, the 39-year-old star of Scary Movie 5 has countered a sudden rise to fame with a catastrophic plunge to notoriety, identified now more for his assault charges than his street-sassy one-liners.
The end of 2012 proved particularly aggravating for the comic, who was arrested multiple times on charges arising from a police chase, bar fight and stolen firearms, among others. He then declared his stand-up career dead in the water only to “unretire” four days later.
Two sides of a coin
But as they say, that was then, this is now, and according to Williams, there can’t be comedy without tragedy. It’s a pitfall of brilliance.
“It’s impossible to separate those two things,” Williams tells theGrio. “Those two things are on opposite sides of a coin, and so is genius and crazy. So if they ever in life call you one, they are in essence handing you a coin that has a flip side on it. I ignored it as long as I could.”
Williams’ broke out in the 2002 film Friday After Next, but truly began to take off in 2006 with the success of his stand-up show The Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1, and his work on Nick Cannon’s Wild n’ Out.
He channeled that success into movie deals, appearing in 2007’s Norbit with Eddie Murphy and the parody film Epic Movie.
Trouble first struck shortly after when he was scheduled to host the 2008 BET Awards, but bailed the week of the show after reportedly verbally assaulting the producers.
From the top to the bottom, Williams’ career hit a sharp decline over the next few years due to a handful of arrests for burglary, criminal trespass, assault, and child endangerment.
No explanation was given specifically for these incidents, but the comedian says he’s acknowledged his defeats, and plans to move forward.
“It’s really hard for you to have growth without change,” he explains. “What you’re doing is you’re attempting to change the bad things about you into better things, without changing who you are as a person. And so I’m doing about as well as can be hoped. Comme ci, comme ça. I made a lot more mistakes than I would like, and so what I’m finding is that to err is human. I’m done erring, now I’m onto joking.”
Last Comic Standing?
Katt Williams’ departure from the spotlight closely paralleled Kevin Hart’s progression, and undoubtedly, the latter comedian’s ascent remains most triumphant.
Such coincidental timing has led some to suggest that Hart replaced Williams in the pecking order, and more recently, it sparked a heated debate between Hart and Mike Epps on Twitter.
Epps criticized Hart for capitalizing on stereotypes of black men to earn credibility in Hollywood, and later tweeted, “Man if Katt Williams wouldn’t have flipped out it would not be no [sic] Kevin Hart.”
Hart countered the comment with a number of retaliatory tweets, but regardless, Epps managed to vocalize what others had been thinking.
No feud with Kevin Hart
Williams, on the other hand, believes there’s room for all.
“I’ve never had any animosity at all towards Kevin Hart,” he remarks. “Kevin Hart and I could probably be classified as polar opposites, and if we weren’t polar opposites, we’re being played that way. I have no problem with whoever the good guys are; I’m glad the good guys exist. I remember when I was the good guy. I have no problem being the bad guy simply because I’m a good person. I didn’t change so as long as I can be consistent.”
“Comedy needs as many as it can get, not one,” he continues. “It wasn’t supposed to be Richard Pryor or Bill Cosby – you were supposed to be able to have both. It wasn’t supposed to be whether you were an Eddie Murphy fan or a Martin Lawrence fan. Comedy encompasses all of us that are in it. If I am the king, it’s only because the people say so. If the powers that be decide that they would rather have someone else there, that’s all well and good. It is what it is. Sometimes you are trying to prove too many things, and it’s a lot easier if you have nothing to prove other than to yourself. I’ll let comedy be the judge.”
Nevertheless, he insists his seat was never taken, rather temporarily held by a filler.
“In my head, I have continued to be the king regardless of whether I was actively wearing the crown,” Williams remarks. “I feel like whoever had that opportunity that they had, I hoped they would use it to their best advantage. But clearly they didn’t because, again, here we are today.”
Onto the next one: A fresh start
In Scary Movie 5, which opens in theaters April 12, Williams joins the spoof team for another installment of horror’s greatest foil. He plays “a priest and a psychic and a musician,” and describes it as a role in complete contrast to his own personality, forcing him to embrace his acting abilities.
“I didn’t know I was a method actor up until that point,” he jokes. “In my regular life, I’m a great avoider of the supernatural. I am 100 percent African-American in the fact that if I thought that I heard a ghost somewhere, my first thought is to go in the opposite direction. The fact that he would be involved in that world is opposite of who I am.”
Following the premiere of the movie, Williams says he’s “going to celebrate” the good energy, continue with film projects and aims to have a stand-up show ready by the summer. Yes, the pimp will strut again, though the comic stresses it’s a brand, not an identity. Furthermore, it’s a character he separates himself from off the stage, as the father of eight children (seven adopted).
And the Williams clan similarly sticks by their patriarch.
“Family’s always family no matter what the family’s going through,” he explains. “Those things that are at one point difficult are the things that draw the bonds closer.”
Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @CourtGarcia