{"id":249472,"date":"2026-07-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/what-ever-happened-to-x-men-97-showrunner-beau-demayo\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:00:00","slug":"what-ever-happened-to-x-men-97-showrunner-beau-demayo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/01\/what-ever-happened-to-x-men-97-showrunner-beau-demayo\/","title":{"rendered":"What Ever Happened to \u2018X-Men \u201897\u2019 Showrunner Beau DeMayo?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As a kid, DeMayo was a textbook example of \u201cbest little boy in the world syndrome,\u201d<\/a> striving to distract his family and friends from his latent homosexuality. He began to embrace that side of his identity as an undergrad at the University of Central Florida, though that was fraught too. DeMayo said he survived \u201ca lot\u201d of sexual abuse while at school\u2014something he was reluctant to talk about. \u201cThat\u2019s why people are like, \u2018Oh, your life is X-Men.\u2019<\/em> I would always run to superheroes to deal with that pain and deal with feeling different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After college, DeMayo went to film school at Florida State, then got his first gig at Marvel by cold-calling the conglomerate and begging for an internship. He worked his way up, eventually turning his internship into a full-time assistant gig for Khaki Jones, then a vice president of current series at Disney Television Animation. He left Marvel, wrote on the CW series The Originals,<\/em> and then spent two seasons writing for Netflix\u2019s The Witcher<\/em> series, starring former Superman Henry Cavill. It seems DeMayo had a rocky exit from that series as well: In 2022, he hosted an Instagram Q and A in which he criticized some of his fellow Witcher<\/em> writers, claiming they didn\u2019t appreciate or even \u201cactively mock[ed]\u201d the show\u2019s source material.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a recipe for disaster and bad morale,\u201d DeMayo continued. \u201cFandom as a litmus test checks egos, and makes all the long nights worth it. You have to respect the work before you\u2019re allowed to add to its legacy.\u201d (Neither Netflix nor The Witcher<\/em>\u2019s showrunner responded to Vanity Fair<\/em>\u2019s request for comment).<\/p>\n

After The Witcher<\/em>, DeMayo returned to Marvel to write for the Oscar Isaac\u2013led series Moon Knight<\/em> and, after a lengthy pitch process in front of Marvel CEO Kevin Feige, won the X-Men \u201997<\/em> gig. \u201cI knew I got the job because when we finished Kevin sat back and was like, \u2018Man, the X-Men are so cool,\u2019\u201d DeMayo told me. \u201cI could tell I had pitched something that made him remember and get excited for why the X-Men are such a big deal. Both in the zeitgeist, but in terms of what the studio can do with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

But like many dream jobs, DeMayo said that showrunning was less than idyllic in practice. Though he got along swimmingly with most of the team he assembled, he recalled sometimes feeling disrespected by a few of his fellow creatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe studio looked the other way as my identity was weaponized by Marvel execs and crew members to undermine me, creating a humiliating environment where people felt emboldened to use the same dog-whistling stereotypes favored by bigots for decades,\u201d said DeMayo in a 30-minute video called \u201cMarvel-Disney Statement,\u201d which he first posted on his OnlyFans page on September 4, 2024\u2014shortly after he filed his suit against Marvel.<\/p>\n

During our second interview in November 2024, DeMayo told me that he felt belittled by his colleagues due to his identity: \u201cOh, you don\u2019t look like a showrunner,\u201d DeMayo alleged that his X-Men \u201997<\/em> colleagues would say, or \u201cyou don\u2019t look like a writer.\u201d Their message was clear, said DeMayo: \u201cThere was that vibe that I was the DEI hire, where, \u2018Oh, they just got a gay Black guy because he checks all the marks and it\u2019s X-Men.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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As a kid, DeMayo was a textbook example of \u201cbest little boy in the world syndrome,\u201d striving to distract his family and friends from his latent homosexuality. He began to embrace that side of his identity as an undergrad at the University of Central Florida, though that was fraught too. DeMayo said he survived \u201ca […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[745,1390,3593,1247,15862,15863,8547,24,15864],"class_list":{"0":"post-249472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-disney","9":"tag-lawsuits","10":"tag-lgbtq","11":"tag-marvel","12":"tag-marvel-comics","13":"tag-marvel-universe","14":"tag-sexual-misconduct","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-x-men"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}