The real-life story of Wesley Snipes, whose movie career ranges from raucous comedy to
superhero action to serious drama, is a complicated one, with plenty of comedy, action and drama
of its own, along with some tragedy, too.
In 2010, Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion.
According to the Pappas Group, self-proclaimed tax adviser Eddie Ray Kahn told Snipes and
around 4,000 other unlucky advisees to set up nonprofit religious corporations, name
themselves as overseers, channel all their earnings into those nonprofits, and live tax-free
because of tax exemptions for religious organizations.
Kahn also printed so-called "bills of exchange" for his clients, which were documents that
looked like checks but weren't actually checks.
Kahn would send the bills of exchange to the IRS in lieu of payment, thinking that would
appease them.
It didn't.
Snipes set up his fake religious nonprofit and then sent the IRS an amended return in
which he claimed a $7.4 million refund on his 1997 taxes.
The IRS didn't agree with that assessment, clearly.
It's possible Snipes simply got really bad advice, but the fact remains that he took
it.
"I relied on the advice of those who I considered professionals."
Wesley Snipes' reputation as a tough guy has probably contributed to a persistent rumor
about his relationship with actress Halle Berry.
In a 1996 interview with People magazine, Berry said a boyfriend once hit her hard enough
to puncture her left eardrum, resulting in an 80% hearing loss in that ear.
“You lost 80 percent of your hearing in your left ear, is that true?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"Was he famous?"
"That means yes."
According to people who knew her at the time, her breakup with Snipes caused her a lot of
personal distress.
Berry has never come right out and said Snipes was the ex who hit her, but her former boyfriend,
R&B singer Christopher Williams, pointed the finger at Wesley Snipes after vehemently denying
that he himself was responsible.
Two of her other exes were similarly accusatory.
Former Major League Baseball star David Justice even went so far as to publicly deny that
he was the abuser in a Tweet, saying:
"Reading the latest Halle Berry Reports, it wasn't me who hit Halle causing the ear damage.
Halle has never said that I hit her."
In follow-up tweets, Justice added the initials "WS," which seems to point the finger at a
specific ex of Berry's.
Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida, but he grew up in the Bronx, where he discovered
his love of acting.
According to GQ, Snipes attended the School of Performing Arts in New York starting at
the age of 13, but was only there for a couple of years before his mother announced that
they were moving back to Florida.
On his last day living in New York, Snipes got a phone call from a well-known New York
theater producer, inviting him to take part in an upcoming musical as his stuff was literally
being loaded into the U-Haul.
When he got back to Florida, Snipes learned that the movie Fame was being shot at the
School of Performing Arts, and a lot of his former classmates were in it.
A lot of kids would have given up in despair at that point, but not Snipes.
After he was voted "Most Talented" by his high school graduating class in 1980, he went
on to the State University of New York, where he obtained a Fine Arts degree.
It wasn't until 1986, though, that he finally got his big break.
A casting agent helped him get a role in the football movie Wildcats.
Some action stars really are trained fighters, and Wesley Snipes can count himself in that
category.
In fact, if you lined up all of Hollywood's action heroes based on real action hero skills,
Snipes would be somewhere near the front of the line.
Snipes started his martial arts training when he was 12, and he didn't just stick with the
same style.
He studied several Asian martial arts, as well as Egyptian, Brazilian, Indonesian, and
African styles.
According to Bleacher Report, he has a fifth-degree black belt in Shotokan Karate.
But it's still not enough to take down Mike Tyson.
According to a story in the book The Inner Ring, by Tyson's former bodyguard Rudy Gonzalez,
the former heavyweight boxing champion caught Snipes with Tyson's then-girlfriend at a soul
food restaurant in Los Angeles, ordered Snipes to the restroom, and then knocked him out
cold.
Not long after landing his first movie role, Snipes got a lucrative part in a music video,
and not just any music video.
It was a starring role in Michael Jackson's epic video for "Bad," which was directed by
the legendary Martin Scorsese.
Also, he stole the part from Prince at least, that's what he told Conan in 2017:
"Michael had told Prince that he had the role and then he met me."
"Is that true?"
"This is a true story."
For the record, that's not the way Prince said it happened.
Snipes plays the antagonist in the video, but that wasn't his only job on set.
According to Rolling Stone, he was also Jackson's bodyguard while they were filming in Harlem.
Jackson was evidently feeling less than comfortable in that environment, and at one point he turned
to Snipes and said, "Are you scared?"
Snipes later recalled:
"I was like, 'Yo, Mike, what are you talking about?
[...] This is Harlem, baby!
This is where we grew up.
They love you.
Really, you're scared?'
He was like, 'A little.'"
Snipes reportedly once led police on a 120 mile-per-hour chase down Florida's Turnpike
in 1994.
According to the Palm Beach Post, a dispatcher informed the Martin County Sheriff's Office
that there was a motorcyclist going over 100 miles per hour on the turnpike.
Officers responded, and the motorcyclist led them on a 30-mile, three-county chase that
ended when he crashed into a grassy area on a turnpike exit.
It was Wesley Snipes, of course, and officers also say that during the chase he tossed something
about the size of a baseball off the side of the road.
Police later found three ounces wrapped in tape, though they couldn't conclusively prove
it belonged to Snipes.
Snipes was briefly handcuffed and charged with reckless driving.
His defense was he didn't know he was being chased and the crash at the exit was just
the normal, ordinary sort of crashing one might expect to happen when exiting the turnpike
at 130 mph.
Snipes was hit with a $7,150 bill for court costs and was sentenced to 80 hours of community
service.
Wesley Snipes was raised Christian, but at a young age he started to have some doubts.
According to Ebony magazine, he was one of just four black students in the theater arts
department at his university, a fact that he said made him feel, quote, "like mold on
white bread."
Then he found out about Malcolm X, and everything changed.
He said:
"When I saw [a Malcolm X] documentary, it changed my whole life everything.
[…] I went straight to the library and literally stole the [Autobiography of Malcolm X], and
for two days I just read."
Snipes found himself drawn to Islam and its emphasis on black pride, and for a while he
was a Muslim.
His new religion didn't stick, though, and today he no longer calls himself a Muslim.
He explained:
"When you're drowning, you grab onto a log to keep afloat.
But don't hold onto the log when the boat comes by.
Get on the boat and bring your butt on back home.
So Islam to me was the log to make me more conscious of what African people have accomplished,
of my self-worth, to give me some self-dignity."
White Men Can't Jump was the unlikely buddy film where Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes
scammed their way through pickup basketball games, but it wasn't their only screen outing.
Snipes and Harrelson first teamed up in Wildcats, before going on to star together in White
Men Can't Jump and Money Train.
Over the years, the two have formed an obvious bond some might even say bromance to the point
where Harrelson once went out of his way to stick up for his friend.
According to the Smoking Gun, Harrelson wrote a character reference letter to help Snipes
during the sentencing phase of his tax evasion trial.
In the letter, Harrelson called Snipes, quote, "a true citizen of the world" who "strives
for rightness in all his relations."
In an interview with BET, Harrelson also said that he would choose Wesley Snipes as his
Hunger Games killing partner.
He is a fifth-degree black belt, so it's not a bad choice.
Like many Hollywood actors, Wesley Snipes spends time on both coasts.
In 2001, he had an apartment in Manhattan.
That's where he and his wife, Nikki, planned to be during September of that year, but plans
changed when Nikki gave birth to their daughter.
The September 11 attacks destroyed the Snipes' apartment, so who knows what would have happened
if they had been home at the time.
Wesley Snipes told the Guide:
"My daughter was born at the same time [as the attacks].
We were taking care of her in Los Angeles, because there's a tradition that you don't
travel with a newborn.
So, literally, we were lying in bed, and my sister called me and said, 'Turn on the TV.'
Our daughter's lying there between us, and I looked over at my lady and said, 'Baby,
our place is gone!'
I just turned to my daughter and started kissing her.
'That's why you came, my girl.
You saved our lives […] you're a lifesaver!'"
Wesley Snipes has a reputation for being, well, difficult.
There's no better illustration of that than Patton Oswalt's first-hand account of what
Snipes was like on the set of Blade: Trinity.
"He wouldn't come out of his trailer, and you'd walk by his trailer and this wall of
stench would just, like, whoa!'
Snipes was apparently often high on set or just not there at all, and Oswalt told the
AV Club everyone else had to compensate:
"A lot of the lines that Ryan Reynolds has were just a result of Wesley not being there.
We would all just think of things for him to say and then cut to Wesley's face not doing
anything because that's all we could get from him."
Oswalt also said Snipes tried to strangle director David Goyer over another actor's
attire, and the day after Goyer jokingly tried to hire a bunch of bikers to pretend to be
his security, Snipes sat down with him and said, "I think you need to quit.
You're detrimental to this movie."
Unfazed, Goyer replied, "Why don't you quit?
We've got all your close-ups, and we could shoot the rest with your stand-in."
Snipes reportedly backed down, and then for the rest of the production refused to communicate
with Goyer except via sticky notes, which he would sign, "From Blade."
Black Panther was one of the first movies to feature a black superhero supported by
a mostly black cast.
And it was a long time coming; longer than you think, even, because in the 1990s, none
other than Wesley Snipes had plans to bring the franchise to the big screen.
Snipes even told the Hollywood Reporter that the legendary Stan Lee was on board with the
project.
Evidently, one of the major roadblocks to the production was that Snipes had trouble
explaining the difference between the comic book Black Panther and the 1960s civil rights
group the Black Panthers.
Snipes recalled,
"They think you want to come out with a black beret and clothing and then there's a movie."
After three scripts, producers were ready to sign a director.
But when Snipes discussed the project with potential director John Singleton, Singleton
insisted that they put the Black Panther character in the civil rights movement, so there was
that problem again.
Ultimately, the project stalled out because Snipes couldn't find the right combination
of director and script, and also because he didn't feel he could do justice to the high-tech
world of Wakanda given the special effects limitations of the time.
Snipes went on from there to do Blade, and we got an extra-awesome version of Black Panther
a couple decades later.
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