Wesley Snipes denies Patton Oswalt’s 2012 claim he tried to strangle Blade Trinity director

Wesley Snipes has addressed Patton Oswalt’s 2012 claim he ‘tried to strangle’ his Blade: Trinity director. 

The 58-year-old action star flatly denied the allegations in an interview with The Guardian on Monday. 

‘Let me tell you one thing. If I had tried to strangle David Goyer, you probably wouldn’t be talking to me now,’ said the Passenger 57 actor. 

According to Oswalt’s interview with The AV Club in 2012, Snipes assaulted Goyer on the set of their 2004 superhero film. 

The comedian, who played Hedges in the third film of the Blade franchise, claimed the attack took place after a Black actor wore a shirt with the word ‘Garbage’ written on it, and Snipes accused the director of being racist based on the assumption he had selected the wardrobe for the scene.

However, ‘it was [the actor’s own] shirt.’

‘And he tried to strangle the director,’ concluded the Young Adult actor. 

But Snipes vigorously disputed that the assault Oswalt recalled had ever taken place.

‘A Black guy with muscles strangling the director of a movie is going to jail, I guarantee you,’ said the Florida native, adding that the incident ‘never happened’. 

‘This is part of the challenges that we as African Americans face here in America – these microaggressions. The presumption that one white guy can make a statement and that statement stands as true,’ continued the Demolition Man star.

‘All it takes is one person, Mr. Oswalt, who I really don’t know,’ Snipes elaborated. ‘I can barely remember him on the set, but it’s fascinating that his statement alone was enough to make people go: “Yeah, you know Snipes has got a problem.”‘

The actor added, ‘I remind you that I was one of the executive producers of the project. I had contractual director approval. I was not just the actor for hire. I had authority to say, to dictate, to decide. This was a hard concept for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.’ 

Snipes is next set to appear in Coming 2 America, the sequel to Eddie Murphy’s 1988 comedy smash. 

Paramount Pictures has sold the Eddie Murphy sequel to Amazon Studios for a reported sum of $125 million, according to Variety.

Paramount had originally set a December 18 release for Coming 2 America, which is the same date Amazon is expected to debut the sequel on its streaming service.  

The original film followed Akeem (Murphy), the prince of the fictional African country of Zumunda, who heads to America to find the woman he wants to marry. 

In the sequel, Akeem learns he has a long-lost son in the United States and must return to America to meet the unlikely heir to the throne of Zamunda. 

John Amos, Shari Headley, Louie Anderson, Vanessa Bell Calloway and Garcelle Beauvais reprise their roles from the original, with Leslie Jones, Rick Ross, Tracy Morgan and KiKi Layne joining Snipes as the sequel’s new faces.