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Drake might’ve gotten adorned himself to millions of female fans as “Wheelchair Jimmy” on Degrassi, but the actor turned rapper actually fought to have his character taken out of the disability program and even took legal action to have writers rewrite his physical status.
According to Page Six, Drizzy wanted his beloved paralyzed character to be able to walk on the show and even threatened writer James Hurst with legal action in order to get what he wanted. Well, no one ever accused Drizzy of being a thug, so legal action from a Canadian actor actually makes sense. Just sayin.’
“There was a letter from a law firm in Toronto, and it was from Aubrey. It was an odd letter that said, ‘Aubrey Graham will not return to ‘Degrassi’ Season 6 as Jimmy Brooks unless his injury is healed, and he’s out of the wheelchair,’” Hurst alleged to The AV Club in an interview published Thursday. “I said, ‘Get him down here.’”
Hurst recalled confronting Drake, now 34, over the letter, saying, “He came in and was like, ‘What letter? I don’t know about that.’ And I said, ‘All right, I understand. But how do you feel about the wheelchair?’”
Apparently Drake said he knew nothing about the letter, but did admit that he was getting ribbed by his rap peers for his wheelchair bound role.
“He’s like, ‘All my friends in the rap game say I’m soft because I’m in a wheelchair,’” Hurst remembered. “And I said, ‘Well, tell your friends in the rap game that you got shot. How much harder can you get? You got shot, and you’re in a wheelchair.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’”
LOL. Aight, b.
Afterwards Hurst said that Drizzy was “so nice” and “apologetic” about the situation that no legal action was ever taken and everything was put to rest.
Interestingly enough of all the things that Drizzy didn’t want to do on the hit teen drama show, rapping was one of them as he felt it would be weird to show his rapping skills while in a wheelchair.
“His music side was one side of his career and the acting was another,” executive producer Stephen Stohn exclusively told Page Six in June at the ATX TV Festival. “We did manage to get him to do some rap, but it did take some convincing.”
Luckily Drake was able to walk and laugh all the way to the bank in real life because he’s arguable the biggest rap star in the game today.
