Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes was married to April Dubois from 1985 to 1990, and they have a son, Jelani Asar Snipes. He has been married to painter Nakyung "Nikki" Park since 2003, and they have four children: sons Akhenaten, Alaafia, and Alimayu, and daughter Iset.

Snipes began training in martial arts at age 12. He holds a fifth-degree black belt in Shotokan karate and a second-degree black belt in Hapkido, and has also trained in capoeira, kung fu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and arnis.

Snipes grew up in New York City's South Bronx and developed an early interest in dance and theatre. He attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York before returning to Orlando, where he performed song-and-dance routines, puppetry, and acrobatics. He later received a Victor Borge Scholarship and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York at Purchase.

His first feature-film appearance was in Wildcats in 1986. Early television work included Miami Vice and All My Children, while his appearance as Michael Jackson's nemesis in the music video for "Bad" brought him to the attention of director Spike Lee. Lee cast him in Mo' Better Blues in 1990 and Jungle Fever in 1991. Snipes gained major recognition as the drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City in 1991.

Snipes became a leading action star through films including Passenger 57, Rising Sun, Demolition Man, Drop Zone, Money Train, The Fan, and U.S. Marshals. He also took on contrasting roles, including the basketball player Sidney Deane in White Men Can't Jump and Noxeema Jackson, a cross-dresser, in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

In 1997, Snipes won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for One Night Stand. The following year, he played Eric Brooks, also known as Blade, in Blade. He reprised the role in Blade II and Blade: Trinity, producing both sequels. Snipes returned as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024, appearing alongside Ryan Reynolds, his former Blade: Trinity co-star.

His later screen credits include Brooklyn's Finest, The Expendables 3, Chi-Raq, The Player, Dolemite Is My Name, Coming 2 America, True Story, and Back on the Strip. His performance as D'Urville Martin in Dolemite Is My Name received positive reviews and award nominations.

Snipes founded the production company Amen-Ra Films in 1991 and later established its subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop film and television projects. His producing credits include Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity, Down in the Delta, The Art of War, and Undisputed.

He co-created the science-fiction comic series After Dark with Antoine Fuqua in 2010. He co-wrote the urban fantasy novel Talon of God with Ray Norman in 2017 and returned to comics with The Exiled in 2022.

In 2008, Snipes was convicted on three misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to file federal income tax returns. He was acquitted of felony charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and filing a false claim. He began serving a three-year sentence in 2010, was released in 2013 after serving 28 months, and completed house arrest later that year.