Mr T, the Eighties icon of The A-Team and Rocky fame, has condemned a new Netflix documentary about his rise and fall – while literally promoting the documentary.
Few stars are more synonymous with a specific moment in time than Mr T, who wore outrageous jewellery, had a hairstyle modelled after West African Mandinka warriors, and would use his ubiquitous catchphrase – “I pity the fool!” – to declare war against his enemies on screen and, in real life, warn children against the dangers of drugs in a series of public service announcements throughout the 1980s.
But after his heyday Mr T largely vanished from screens, making only sporadic public appearances and hosting short-lived reality TV shows – among them a home improvement series titled I Pity the Tool that only broadcast a single episode.
Now he’s back with his own Netflix documentary charting his life and career, next week’s Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool, but has used a rare interview to express his displeasure for it.
“The documentary pissed me off, because they didn’t cover a lot of stuff,” he told The Guardian. “When I saw it I was like: ‘What the heck?’ It’s garbage. You build me up, then you try to punk me out. I said: ‘Wow man, I’m more than that.’ Two days they interviewed my pastor, and he gets 30 seconds [on screen] … That’s what we call, in the black community, a white man wanting to change the story and control the narrative. If you don’t know me, you’re gonna think I’m some monster.”
Mr T, now 74, is a born-again Christian, and suggested that the documentary does not adequately show his charity work with the United States Army or the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and incorrectly states that his career dwindled due to bad business decisions.
“All I wanted to do was buy my mother a beautiful house and pretty dresses,” he explained. “I done that in the Eighties, so the game was over. It was done. I was already walking away … Like the poem says, if you can walk with kings and queens and not lose your common touch then you will be a man, my son. How many people have sold their soul to the devil, chasing money? I’m not chasing the dollar. I never did.”
He also denied claims made in the documentary by his former agent that his career choices were misplaced – specifically his role as a Bearded Lady in a surreal 1993 comedy movie titled Freaked.
“Brooke Shields was in it, Keanu Reeves was in it, Randy Quaid was in it,” Mr T explained. “It was a fine role, but he’s putting me down for being in it. He wants to cut Mr T down.” He added that the documentary has “an agenda” by contrasting footage of himself in his typical regalia and then dressed up as a bearded woman. “They had to undercut what I’m about. What a joke!”
The Independent has reached out to Netflix for comment.
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Mr T, whose real name is Laurence Tureaud, played the tough-talking BA Baracus in The A-Team from 1983 to 1987, and parlayed his celebrity into political advocacy and charity work. He released a motivational video aimed at young people in 1984, titled Be Somebody… or Be Somebody’s Fool!, and was the face of First Lady Nancy Reagan’s notorious anti-drugs campaign Just Say No.
They struck up an unlikely friendship, with Reagan sitting on Mr T’s lap while he was dressed as Santa Claus in one of their unique public appearances together. Upon Reagan’s death in 2016, Mr T tweeted that working with her was “the highlight of my career”.
“It wasn’t political because I am not a Republican nor am I a Democrat,” he wrote. “I am just a Christian brother from the hood trying to do some good! I will truly miss First Lady Nancy Reagan.”
Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool streams on Netflix from 8 September
