A viral fan video by the Kansas City-based filmmaker Morgan Cooper inspired the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" spinoff series on Peacock "Bel-Air," with Cooper serving as the executive producer. The actors in the fan video, as well as some of the crew, say they were told by Cooper and his producer that they would have an opportunity to work on the show — so when he asked them to work on a film project in LA while "Bel-Air" was in pre-production, they were more than happy to take part.
The following first-person accounts are based on phone conversations with four of those crew and cast members. Insider used emails, text messages, and other supporting documentation to verify their involvement with the projects mentioned. The on-set behavior by unnamed crew members was corroborated by multiple sources. Their words have been edited for length and clarity.
Kerry Rounds, producer: 'I helped the fan trailer go viral and connected Cooper to Will Smith'
I'm a film producer and social-media strategist. I met Morgan Cooper in 2017, when I hired him for a few video projects.
After a while working together, Cooper approached me with an idea — he wanted to remake the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" as a drama and make a fan trailer out of it. I was like, "Well, damn, that's interesting." At that time, I really thought a lot of Cooper and his talk about wanting to uplift the Black community.
I ended up being credited as an associate producer on the video. I wasn't involved with the filming of it — I was brought in to handle the post-production.
When the trailer was done and posted, I told Cooper I could call in some favors and get this thing seen. I posted to one of my influencer's pages, and in a half hour it was at 150,000 views. I tapped another friend of mine and asked him to post the trailer — 1.5 million views and growing.
A teammate of mine knew Will Smith's personal videographer and said he might be able to get the video in front of him, so I asked him to send it. We got an immediate response from Smith's company, asking for Cooper's contact information.
Smith requested a meeting with Cooper, which obviously went well. In 2020, the buying process for the "Bel-Air" series began. I sat in on some of the pitches, and we found out that Peacock was going to pick up the series.
When Cooper was about to head to LA with the actor-producer Rufus Burns to start working on the show, I went out with both of them and asked Cooper what the reality was of me getting a job on "Bel-Air." He assured me that Peacock knew he needed to bring people on — and if they didn't allow it, then he wouldn't do the deal.
At that point, I was like, well, that's a really powerful statement coming from you. I didn't hear from Cooper again until months later in 2021, when I was in the LA area for a project I was working on. Cooper saw on social media that I was there and reached out to have dinner. He filled me in on where things were with pre-production for "Bel-Air," but I noticed that he wasn't talking about my job on the show anymore.
He said he wanted to do a film starring Rufus, but that he was under contract for "Bel-Air" so no one could know. I told him I'd be in and out of LA for this work deal and to let me know how I could help. He asked if I could spot a little bit of the starter money, just to get things rolling, and we'd all get paid when the film sold. I agreed. I figure it'd be a good investment, since Cooper's a young and in-demand content creator.
I'm also thinking it'd be a good opportunity to beef up my producer credits. At first, it was only a seven-day short film, then he changed it to a 30-day shoot for a feature-length film, but shooting ultimately went on for three months.
Further motivating me was that Cooper's NBC assistant had reached out to me. It again seemed I might really get a job on "Bel-Air." Cooper told me he'd pitched me for an executive role to NBC.
When shooting for the film started, I came back to LA and would be on set to support the cast and crew. I'd let the crew use my credit card for purchases related to the film. I had a conversation with Cooper about formally buying 20% of the film and opening a business account for the PAs to use for purchases, but he said he didn't want that. I dropped the issue — but we left that conversation with the understanding that Cooper was going to fund the rest of the film himself. That didn't happen. I was continuously leaned on by the other producer to purchase crew meals, props, and whatever else they needed.
To make matters worse, when I finally read the script, I realized the entire movie we were shooting was about Khrystal Johnson (the lead actress) and Rufus' actual circumstances: In the film, Khrystal and Rufus move from Kansas City to LA and fall on hard times while Rufus is waiting on the most important role of his life. And at that time, Cooper was the key to Rufus getting the role on "Bel-Air." I found it disturbing that Cooper was manipulating their real-life emotions to make this film.
I continued funding the film, because at this point, I'm in pretty deep financially, and we don't know what Cooper's got going on behind the scenes — maybe we would still get put on "Bel-Air" when it was all said and done.
As time went by and we were shooting the film, I started to witness Cooper all but promise several PAs and sound techs they'd get a job on the "Bel-Air" TV show. It didn't sit right with me.
I was dismissed from the film when one of the producers and I started not seeing eye to eye. Cooper told me I ruined my opportunity to be part of "Bel-Air" by not getting along with this producer — which made absolutely no sense. To me, it seemed like he'd been waiting for any reason to tell me I wouldn't be involved with the show, and he finally found something. I never came back to set, but I decided to try and protect my investment by continuing to fund the film. Eventually it was canceled.
After months of back and forth and involving my lawyer, I was eventually reimbursed my over $20,000 investment in that film, months after I originally requested it. I wish I'd never gotten involved in the first place.
Khrystal Johnson, actress: 'I left my son for a year for nothing'
Morgan Cooper's producer sent an email to everyone who was on the call sheets for the "Bel-Air" video. He said we'd all get the opportunity to be part of the NBC show in some capacity, whether it was to audition for a role or something else. The producer retracted the email a few days later, saying he had no right to say that — but Cooper doubled down verbally to us after that and always talked as if it was a done deal.
Later that year, Cooper contacted me and Rufus about an idea for a film he wanted to shoot in LA, and was very adamant that he wanted us to star in it. He suggested that we be in LA to prep for "Bel-Air" as well. He asked Rufus to drive his car from Kansas City to LA for him, saying he was busy with some "Bel-Air" stuff — so I was with Rufus when we drove Cooper's car out there together.
I have a son who was 8 when this happened, so I put my son in the care of his father and my family, and told him, "I wouldn't leave you or do this if it wasn't a sure thing. I'll call every day and then I'll be back. This is going to help us."
When we got to LA in October 2020 to prep for the "Bel-Air" series, there wasn't any movement on it for several months while Cooper told us the show was going through "creative changes." We were just on standby out there until Cooper decided he was ready to shoot the film project in April.
When we first started shooting it, Cooper wanted to use our actual life experiences for the film's story. In the film, my character is a musician about to have her big break, which was literally me at the time — or so I thought, with "Bel-Air."
My situation with my son also ends up being part of the story — I was telling Cooper about the conversations I was having with my son, and he'd mimic those conversations in the film. He even hired a little boy actor and we did several personal scenes, where the boy playing my son and I talk about me being away from him.
Now that we know how things turned out, I definitely wonder why Cooper wanted the film to be about us.
Just like Rufus, I wasn't able to support myself with a steady job because we had to be on-call to shoot whenever Cooper had time in between "Bel-Air." Rufus and I both had only been paid $1,000 for the whole project. I was living off of funding from pandemic relief — and that was pretty much it. At a few points during that time, I had gigs.
LET ALONE MAKE THE MOVIE
