{"id":2258311,"date":"2026-01-30T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2258311"},"modified":"2026-01-30T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:18:09","slug":"tommy-davidson-gives-update-on-martin-spinoff-varnell-hill-admits-martin-lawrence-had-a-little-hesitation-about-the-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/tommy-davidson-gives-update-on-martin-spinoff-varnell-hill-admits-martin-lawrence-had-a-little-hesitation-about-the-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Davidson Gives Update on \u201cMartin\u201d Spinoff \u201cVarnell Hill\u201d, Admits Martin Lawrence Had &#8216;a Little Hesitation&#8217; About the Show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<h3 class=\"mb-4 text-lg font-bold\">NEED TO KNOW<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tommy Davidson appeared on &#8220;Rap Attack Official,&#8221; talking to the hosts about his journey with the Varnell Hill character<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Davidson, 62, spoke about reconnecting with Martin Lawrence to get the project going<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>Varnell Hill <\/em>will stream on BET+<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/movies\/tommy-davidson-says-will-smith-went-all-gangsta-on-him-after-he-kissed-jada-pinkett-on-woo-set\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tommy Davidson;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tommy Davidson<\/a> is thankful for the journey his career has taken him on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Appearing in an interview for <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0CIyPrNgyFw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Rap Attack Official;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><em>Rap Attack Official<\/em><\/a>, the actor, 62, confirmed that <em>Martin<\/em> spinoff <em>Varnell Hill<\/em> is in progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s real, we shot it,&#8221; he confirmed. &#8220;We shot eight of them&#8230; We&#8217;ve seen the editing and it&#8217;s beautiful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Me and Martin got together probably after 14 years. We hadn&#8217;t seen each other. We hadn&#8217;t been on camera together since the show was out,&#8221; he shared, noting it started with a conversation with Christopher &#8216;Kid&#8217; Reid about the lack of Black late-night hosts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-news-daily-newsletter-sign-up-8692701\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PEOPLE's free daily newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">PEOPLE&#8217;s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The conversation got Davidson&#8217;s wheels turning and he reached out to Lawrence, who was &#8220;<em>Bad Boy<\/em>&#8216;ing all over the world,&#8221; he joked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While Davidson said there was &#8220;a little hesitation&#8221; on Lawrence&#8217;s part initially, he quickly realized, &#8220;That would be bomb.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Varnell Hill was a fictional talk show host who appeared on season 2 of <em>Martin<\/em>. Asked if it was true that the character was based on Donnie Simpson, Davidson shared, &#8220;I would say you can say that&#8217;s true, because Donnie was the first one that kind of broke into that, took DJs to the camera, you know?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It was that type of jockey. But Donnie ain&#8217;t phony like Varnell. Varnell&#8217;s phony,&#8221; he laughed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While it took five years to get the show truly in motion, it was well worth the wait.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Let me tell you something man, when I got to that table read, I froze. I froze. It was like, it was too much. I just had to really realize how much this guy loves me, man,&#8221; he said, pointing up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He couldn&#8217;t have set up a better situation for me, because here I am, with all the actors around me and all of the people that are in the crew and have worked with me for the last 35 years, because I worked in everything. But I never had a starring one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.paramountpressexpress.com\/bet-plus\/releases\/?view=111329-bet-greenlights-martin-spinoff-varnell-hill-starring-actor-and-comedian-tommy-davidson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:press release;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">press release<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0<em>Varnell Hill<\/em>, the comedian revealed his reaction to bringing back his namesake character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cDid you miss me? Well, now you don\u2019t have to!\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m excited and honored to be a part of such a creative project with the brilliant mind of Martin Lawrence, over 30 years in the making. Fans have requested it and now it\u2019s coming to BET+!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the original article on <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/tommy-davidson-discusses-reconnecting-with-martin-lawrence-and-how-varnell-hill-came-to-be-11894477\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:People;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEED TO KNOW Tommy Davidson appeared on &#8220;Rap Attack Official,&#8221; talking to the hosts about his journey with the Varnell Hill character Davidson, 62, spoke about reconnecting with Martin Lawrence to get the project going Varnell Hill will stream on BET+ Tommy Davidson is thankful for the journey his career has taken him on. Appearing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2258312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[437348,384859,405830,437347],"class_list":["post-2258311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-donnie-simpson","tag-martin-lawrence","tag-tommy-davidson","tag-varnell-hill"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Tommy-Davidson-Gives-Update-on-Martin-Spinoff-Varnell-Hill-Admits.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2258311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258313,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2258311\/revisions\/2258313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2258312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2258311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2258311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2258311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}