Marvel says X-Men ’97’s old showrunner was fired over ‘egregious’ investigation findings

After dismissing X-Men ’97’s former showrunner, Beau DeMayo, just before the show’s season 1 premiere, the studio seemed ready to move on with a new creative team. But following DeMayo’s recent claims that Marvel unfairly pulled his credits from X-Men ’97’s upcoming second season, the company says he was fired over the “egregious” findings of an internal investigation.

Though DeMayo was fired before X-Men ’97 aired, his name was still going to be included in the show’s upcoming second season because of the preproduction work he contributed to the project. But in a thread posted to his X account on Thursday, DeMayo accused Marvel of stripping his season 2 credits away due to his posting fan art of himself. DeMayo, who is openly gay, implied that Marvel’s decision was driven specifically by the fan art, which depicts him as the X-Men Cyclops without his signature blue spandex and was posted during Pride Month on June 4th. DeMayo also said that his firing was “the latest in a troubling pattern I suffered through” while working for Marvel on X-Men ’97 and the embattled Blade movie.

But in a concise statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel said that DeMayo’s firing came as the result of an investigation that found him to have engaged in “egregious” behavior toward other employees. According to anonymous sources cited by THR, “sexual misconduct” was part of why DeMayo was fired from season 1, and Deadline reports that the removal of his credits is a consequence of his breaching a separation agreement with Marvel.

Following Marvel’s assertion that it had ample reason to let DeMayo go, DeMayo’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, put out a statement defending his client, claiming that Disney is “secretly attempting to plant illegal unconscionable items in contracts that silence the truth.”

The statement continues: “As we will explain through detailed examples which we will roll out in detail one by one, Disney’s model is very clear and a repetitive illegal pattern. Once it gets challenged or exposed, the gaslighting and redirection of the blame toward anyone willing to tell the truth starts through an international well oiled publicity machine.”