Trai Byers Is The Farrah Fawcett Of “Empire,” So Says Page Six
When Farrah Fawcett left Charlie’s Angels, the show that made her a STAR, after only one season, the rumor was that she wanted to do theater and movie work. (The other rumor was that her husband at the time, Lee Majors, wanted her to stay home and be a good little housewife.) Well, a source tells Page Six says that Trai Byers, who plays Cookie and Lucious Lyon’s hot piece eldest son Andre on Empire, may be thinking about pulling a Farrah. Trai’s husband Lee Majors wants him to leave the show so he can stay home and be a good little housewife. No, Trai thinks he’s too big of a star now and wants to do more serious work!
A source (who may or may not be a Fox publicist looking to get a little scandal out there right before Empire’s return later this month) tells Page Six that Trai is feeling himself a little too much and thinks that he, a trained actor, shouldn’t be slumming it by not playing a lead. The mind of Trai Byers believes that Trai Byers deserves a role as big as Taraji P. Henson and Baby Wipes.
“Trai wants out. He feels that he studied at Yale and he’s a ‘true thespian’ . . . The character is beneath him. He has an idea of himself as being this big Shakespearean actor. At first, being on ‘Empire’ was major for him. But he feels his character is not as important this season, and he hates not being the star. He thinks he has the acting chops of Taraji and Terrence. He doesn’t get how the show benefits him, and he feels he has way too much talent when he’s not the star by any means.”
The source says that Trai is trying to get into movies and he was thisclose to getting cast as Muhammad Ali in a movie. But when he lost the role, he fired his “team.” Trai, who is engaged to Boo Boo Kitty in real-life, has also been taking it out on the Empire producers and writers. The producers have apparently had it with his diva antics and will gladly open the exit door for him if he decides to dramatically throw his scarf around his neck and sashay out of there.
“Trai threw a temper tantrum during filming in the past few weeks, saying, ‘I don’t get to do enough, I might leave.’ But producers called his bluff and said, ‘Fine, if you’re not happy, we don’t need you.’ He thinks he is a brilliant guy who deserves a better role, but he’s hardly one of the most popular or dynamic actors on the show.”
Another source claims that Trai hasn’t been fired and isn’t threatening to leave.
If this is true, then delusional has a new idol, and I’m also going to need to see proof that Trai went to all of his acting classes at Yale. Because I have thoroughly studied Shakespeare in detail (read: I’ve watched the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet like three times and once hooked up with a dude who was in the chorus of a regional theater production of West Side Story) and Empire IS Shakespeare. In fact, I’m sure the Estate of William Shakespeare has demanded that he get credit for some of the lines in Empire. I am 100% sure that in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth burps up this line of pure poetry about Lady Macduff’s look: “You know I was never into wearing all them damn weaves. Girls walking around with their scalps smelling like goat ass.”
You’d think that as a Shakespearean actor, Trai Byers would know that he IS doing Shakespeare. He should just be happy that he gets to say the words of the immortal Bard every week.
Pic: Fox