Kenya Barris Says He Left Netflix When It “Became CBS”

Kenya Barris is revealing why he left his lucrative Netflix deal halfway through his contract, telling The Hollywood Reporter that the streamer “became CBS.” Barris, who walked from his $100 million dollar Netflix deal in favor of a partnership with ViacomCBS and BET, is pairing up with the companies to create the new BET Studios — and now, he’s ready to talk about his decision to leave.

“I think a lot of people thought I got fired or I quit, like ‘F-ck this,’ over some kind of beef with Netflix,” Barris told THR, adding, “I just don’t know that my voice is Netflix’s voice. The stuff I want to do is a little bit more edgy, a little more highbrow, a little more heady, and I think Netflix wants down the middle.” To put it bluntly, Barris said, “Netflix became CBS.”

While at Netflix, Barris created and starred in Black AF, a semi-autobiographical comedy about a family modeled off of his own. While the series was initially renewed for Season 2, Netflix will no longer be moving ahead with a second season. “For Netflix, say we got 35 million viewers, they were like, ‘Well, it wasn’t Fuller House,'” he explained, saying it was difficult for him to pitch projects that would fit in with Netflix’s vision.

Barris first joined Netflix in 2018, signing on to the streamer as one of many lucrative deals with high-profile creators — including Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy. At the time, he was leaving ABC, the home of this popular sitcom Black-ish, in part because the network wouldn’t air an episode of the show that contained political and social themes.

At first, Barris was “terrified” at Netflix, he told THR, explaining that Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos “had come and saved me with a beyond-generous offer, and he let me act, and I’m not an actor, in a show that wasn’t their cup of tea.” Barris added, “And they paid a ton of money for that show, they let me put on Deon Cole’s special and an experimental sketch comedy show [Astronomy Club], they gave me beautiful offices, and they never knocked on my door and asked what I was doing. I was like, ‘Is this the definition of ungrateful?'”

Now that he’s left Netflix, he’s got a whole slew of projects lined up in addition to BET Studios. Barris has also signed a first-look film deal with Paramount Studios, is working on a podcast with Audible, and signed a book contract with Random House.