Damon Wayans Sr. says he was absent for the first few weeks of Damon Wayans Jr.'s life.
The elder Wayans sent his son’s mother, Lisa Thorner, away when she was pregnant. Wayans Sr. was 22 years old when he became a father in 1982.
"I sent his mom to Vermont to live with her mother because I was really just running from him,” the elder Wayans told People in a recent interview, seen around the 1-minute mark of the video below.
“I was too young to have a child ... I couldn't see myself with a kid," he said. "I didn't meet Jr. until he was like 5 weeks old.”
“I remember driving up to the house and I heard him crying outside of the house in Vermont,” the elder Wayans continued. “Lisa, his mom, she doesn’t know what [to do]. Her hair is all frazzled and I say, ‘Hey, give him to me.’"
He explained that as soon as he held him, his infant son stopped crying.
"And I’m just holding him and humming and he’s just looking up at me and that was the moment that I realized I gotta be a man for this guy," he said. "I gotta grow up.”
In another part of the interview, the father-son duo revealed that Michael Jordan basically lived at their home when they were neighbors in the 1990s. At one point, the younger Wayans joked about how the NBA legend would eat their snacks.
"That's how good our snacks were when Jordan's in there just like munching on your freaking [snacks]," Jr. said.
The elder Wayans also reminisced on how his friends would fan girl over Jordan and visit the Wayans’ home to “get a glimpse of Michael Jordan."
"One thing I really put the my foot down was, 'Don't bother him,'" he said.