Ice Cube Cites George Floyd Killing As Reason He Canceled ‘GMA’ Appearance

Ice Cube said on Thursday that he decided to cancel a scheduled appearance on “Good Morning America” due to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died on Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck while he was handcuffed and saying he couldn’t breathe.

“I apologize to everyone expecting to see me on Good Morning America today, but after the events in Minnesota with George Floyd I’m in no mood to tell America, good morning,” the rapper/actor/film producer tweeted.  

Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, stars alongside Tracee Ellis Ross, Dakota Johnson and Kelvin Harrison Jr. in the new movie “The High Note,” which will be available to stream on Friday. 

In a follow-up tweet on Thursday, Ice Cube responded to a Twitter user who suggested that he could’ve used the “Good Morning America” platform to “bring more awareness” and to “make a statement” on Floyd’s death.

Ice Cube, a former member of N.W.A — a rap group whose music notably protested police brutality and racial profiling in the late 1980s and early ’90s — rejected the notion that he needed to make a statement on that specific platform. Black people across the world continue to deal with the trauma of witnessing police killings of other Black people.

“I’m done talking,” he said. “These people know right from wrong and they obviously don’t care. So what we talking about?”

Floyd, 46, was unarmed and handcuffed when he was filmed in a viral video repeatedly pleading with four officers arresting him over a reported “forgery in progress” that he couldn’t breathe. One of those officers — identified as Derek Chauvin — continued to kneel on his neck.

All four officers were fired. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called on the Hennepin County attorney’s office to arrest and criminally charge Chauvin during a press conference on Wednesday.