Actor and rapper Ice Cube has exited the Sony comedy film “Oh Hell No!” after refusing producers’ requests to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Ice Cube was set to receive a $9 million payout for the film, according to US media reports.

The film, which is set to star Jack Black, is scheduled to start production in Hawaii in December. 

Meanwhile, this is not the first film the rapper has declined to be a part of to avoid getting vaccinated. Earlier, he withdrew from a boxing film that had only shot a day of the film before COVID-19 put a pause on Hollywood.

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Throughout the epidemic, Ice Cube, whose true name is O’Shea Jackson, was an outspoken proponent of masking. He gave 2,000 face masks to an Oklahoma college during the peak of the Delta variant wave in August. In April 2020, shortly after the epidemic began, he also sold shirts advising people to wear masks.

However, recently, some of his tweets offered a mixed view on the seriousness of the virus. In early June last year, he tweeted that doctors should “stop lying about the coronavirus,” saying the world needs “the absolute TRUTH,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Days later, he tweeted a photo of the “CUE” for the virus, which featured a mocked-up album cover of someone getting a substance implanted through a needle with “Lethal Injection” over the photo.

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The actor is one of a number of Hollywood stars and prominent figures who have refused to get vaccinated, despite employers, studios and productions mandating their stars get the shot.