Ice Cube has claimed Chris Tucker turned down a role in Next Friday due to religious reasons.

The 52-year-old actor and rapper claimed on Twitter that his co-star in the successful 1995 stoner comedy turned down a role in the follow-up despite a high salary offer.

“We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons,” the 21 Jump Street star tweeted on Wednesday after a fan asked if Tucker quit over “money reasons”, adding, “He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”

The Rush Hour star recently told All Urban Central that he turned down the sequel because of his marijuana-smoking character Smokey.

“Back then, I gotta tell you, one of the reasons why I didn’t do the second one was because of the weed,” the 50-year-old recalled. “Because I said, man, that movie became a phenomenon. I don’t want everybody smoking weed – and I never really told people this because I kind of forgot about it, but it was one of the reasons why I didn’t do it. Because I said, ‘I don’t wanna represent everybody smoking weed.’

“And that’s one of the reasons why I said ‘nah’. I didn’t wanna keep doing that character. It probably was good for me because it kept me moving to the next phase and next movies.”

Cube also served as a producer on all three Friday films, including 2000’s Next Friday and 2002’s Friday After Next.

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