Malik Yoba’s character was killed off of “Empire” and if you haven’t seen the season finale yet — oh well, you had a week to catch up.
There are a ton of rumors as to why Malik Yoba was given the axe on Fox’s hit TV show. According to Yoba, he got the call from Lee Daniels himself, who said that someone had to die on the finale and naturally, it had to be him.
Lee called me and told me,” Yoba says, “He said that, um, someone at Fox said that someone needed to die in the season finale. So, I was like ‘Word?’” In a follow up statement he says, “To this day, I don’t know — in the infinite wisdom — who thought it was the best approach, but someone did. I never got a clear answer on it. But it wasn’t about the work or ethics or work ethics. It was the plot line. Vernon’s gone, but Malik lives on. And — as I’ve told you, Chuck, in private — it’s a great opportunity to push forward the work that I’m doing in terms of building my own empire, if you will.”
According to an Empire insider, however, Malik Yoba was fired due to substance abuse problems. “Malik Yoba is back on drugs and he was making everyone on the set uncomfortable. One star of the show even threatened to quit during the 10th episode, but then they upped their pay to convince them to stay,” says the insider, “Fox caught wind of what was going on and gave Lee Daniels an ultimatum: ‘You tell Malik he’s fired or we will.’ Fox also threatened to shelve the show indefinitely if Daniels didn’t do as he was told. So he did, and the rest is history.”
Neither Lee Daniels or Malik Yoba have spoken on the recent rumor so it’s hard to say what triggered his firing. Hopefully it isn’t drugs, though.
