Marlon Wayans officially filed a response after his ex, Brittany Moreland, filed a request for full custody of their 18-month-old daughter, Axl July Ivory Wayans.
According to court documents obtained by ET, the 51-year-old comedian and actor is requesting joint physical and legal custody of the former couple’s daughter. In his court documents, filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Wayans also filed a voluntary declaration of paternity, which he signed in December.
The comedian is also requesting that reasonable pregnancy and childbirth expenses be shared jointly, as well as attorney fees and other fees that arise over the course of the custody battle. Moreland — who listed in her own court documents that she is an “unemployed graduate student” in California — had previously requested that Wayans cover those fees.
Wayans’ response came more than three months after Moreland asked for full custody and for Wayans to be granted visitation rights, a notion the comedian scoffed at in a tell-all interview with The Shadow Room.
Wayans — who also shares 23-year-old Kai, who came out as transgender in November, and Shawn, 21, with ex Angelica Zachary — explained why he wasn’t happy about being named as “visitor” to his daughter, Axl.
“This is a classic case of a good, loving, responsible father shelling out over $18,000 a month for a 1-year-old, and an arrogant woman deciding she wants more,” Wayans told the outlet. “My mother and them would have lost their minds for $2,000.”
“You pay all this money a month and you’re called a ‘visitor’? Do the math. That’s delusional. I’m going to let the lawyers and God do what they do,” he continued. “I’m going to create art out of a broken heart. I have nothing but love. Even when it’s bad, it’s good…it’s GOD.”
Wayans also noted The Shadow Room“I had two children before this. I never had this problem. I am a good man with a good heart and a strong sense of responsibility, but I refuse to be used and discredited.”
Wayans’ latest custody battle comes just over a year after Wayans family patriarch Howell Wayans died at the age of 86 in April 2023. The actor’s mother, Elvira, died in 2020She was 81 years old.
“In my life right now, I have so many things that can be depressing. I lost my mother recently, I lost my father three days ago. I realize that the only thing that saves me is the stage,” he explained in an interview with Good morning America. “Because when I’m hurting, those laughs that I hear from other people healing from my pain, I realize my purpose. And I think it’s important for all of us to do what comedians do, which is to look at this world, look at this life, and always try to spend our lives trying to find smiles. And that’s what I do on stage.”
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