Drake reported threatened legal action against the writers of “Degrassi: The Next Generation” after he wanted his infamous character Jimmy Brooks to be fully recovered and off his wheelchair.
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‘Degrassi’ former writer James Hurst revealed the shocking tidbit in a report by The A.V. Club. For fans of the nostalgic show, Jimmy Brooks was a star athlete on the show before he was shot on the Season 4 two-part school shooting episode “Time Stands Still.” In the aftermath of the shooting, Brooks remained in a wheelchair for two seasons until Drake’s departure from the show.
“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 six as Jimmy Brooks unless his injury is healed, and he’s out of the wheelchair.’ I said, ‘Get him down here,'” he recounted. “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?'” “He’s like, ‘All my friends in the rap game say I’m soft because I’m in a wheelchair.’ And I said, ‘Well, tell your friends in the rap game that you got shot,” Hurst said to the publication.
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Hurst added that Drake apologized about the legal letter but he noted how representation for the character mattered at the time.
“He was so nice and apologetic about everything. He instantly backed down. I was very passionate about it, and I said, ‘Aubrey, there’s some kid somewhere in a wheelchair, who’s completely ignored, who’s never on television, never gets represented. I need you to represent this person. You’re the coolest kid on the show, and you can say there’s nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair,'”
Drake’s former co-stars said he had issues dealing with using the wheelchair on set and understood his frustrations regarding his character’s drastic change.
SOURCE: PEOPLE