Was Katt Williams Really a Pimp? What the Comedian Has Said

Jan. four 2024, Published 3:42 p.m. ET

Comedian and Emmy-winning actor Katt Williams hardly ever minces his phrases in the public eye. Since rising to popularity in the early 2000s, Katt has unabashedly shared his sizzling takes on the state of comedy and the lack of appreciation he feels he receives from the industry.

Katt's hot takes, which he at all times delivers in his distinguishable voice and cadence, are a few of the many stuff his fanatics acknowledge him for. Fans additionally establish the comedian with his quite a lot of roles as a pimp in motion pictures equivalent to Friday After Next, The Boondocks, and his standup specials.

Due to Katt's seamless solution to portraying a pimp on film, some fanatics are satisfied he could have been one in real life. But is that true? Here's the tea on Katt Williams' ties to the pimp neighborhood.

Katt Williams spread out about being a pimp at 17.

Katt's profession reputedly came about in a single day. In 2002, he made his movie debut as Money Mike in Friday After Next, where he played a money-hungry pimp who befriended Ice Cube's persona, Craig. Katt's function as Money Mike led to his pimp personality, which he displayed in his comedy specials, The Pimp Chronicles and It's Pimpin' Pimpin.' More significantly, Katt lent his voice to the role of a Pimp Named Slickback on The Boondocks.

After growing up as a gifted scholar in Cincinnati, Ohio, Katt sooner or later left his town for a career in Hollywood. However, his highway to stardom wasn't easy, as he discovered himself homeless and struggling to search out manner to toughen himself. Eventually, Katt turned to the streets and admitted to pimping as a method to live on.

In November 2022, YouTube account Inappropriate Shorts posted a clip from one among Katt's radio interviews. The account did not proportion the place Katt's interview happened, but he in short mentioned his time as a pimp when he was 17.

During the interview, Katt claimed he was "selling door to door" when he stumbled upon a house locally. The space had five ladies in it, who Katt mentioned had been sex employees. The comic stated the ladies have been "sobbing uncontrollably" as a result of they had witnessed their former pimp be shot to death in the house prior to Katt arrived. Fearing for his or her lives, Katt stated the ladies became to him for the following steps.

"I said if you can tell me what to do, I'll do it," the comedian said in his interview.

Katt added that he didn't get into pimping for the cash, mentioning he was most effective adapting to "the situation I was put in." He also didn't percentage how lengthy he was the ladies's pimp, although he declared in the interview that "Those five women made Katt Williams."

Katt Williams said he turned down pimp roles once he realized he was being "pigeonholed" to taking part in one.

While Katt was technically a pimp at one point in his existence, he has since left the way of living at the level. Despite his previous run-ins with the regulation, the comic has no record of soliciting any person as a public figure. The comedian also hasn't performed a pimp or discussed the profession in his comedy since the early aughts.

In a 2015 interview with The Virginia Pilot, Katt stated he began turning down roles the place he performed a pimp because it now not aligned along with his trajectory as an actor and comic. When he turned into famous for his portrayal, Katt mentioned he wanted to steer clear of becoming a "gimmick."

“It’s the explanation I can be the pimp comedian, and 17 years later, I haven’t advised a comic story about placing a woman in the street as it was by no means about that,” Katt mentioned. “It was about being approach other than the norm. I was fortunate that I didn’t need to gimmick it.”

Katt added that he modified his topics as soon as he started feeling like he was being typecasted as a pimp. Doing so earned him roles outside his silk-haired modify ego, like his Emmy-winning role as Willy, or "Alligator Man," in Atlanta.

“Being stereotyped or pigeonholed is likely to occur anytime you do one thing well,” Katt shared. “In the following five or six years, after I’d get a lot of these pimp roles, I needed to flip them down as a result of I didn’t need to be stuck any place. I was trying to be the best comedian I might be and to verify I kept the relationship with my fan base. I thought the clearest manner to try this was to stay as actual, secure, and honest as conceivable.”

While Katt isn't too concerned in the pimp existence on or off-camera, fans will at all times admire his accurate and hilarious portrayal of them!

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