Omari Hardwick Says That He Has Empathy For Power Fans Who Are Upset Over Ghost’s Death, “You Were Sold And Told A Story That Did Not Continue”

Cousins! While appearing at the Uninterrupted Film Festival in Los Angeles, Omari Hardwick addressed devoted fans’ comments regarding the death of his beloved character James ‘Ghost’ St Patrick on Power.

The actor expressed that he understands fans’ sadness and truly empathizes with them over Ghost’s death. Omari explained that the story he was told on how his character would live on forever and change his life around is the same story fans were told but never was delivered.

The original Power series came to an end in 2020 following a groundbreaking six seasons on Starz. The series wrapped with Ghost’s shocking death as he began to pivot from a notorious drug dealer to a successful businessman and prospective politician.

Omari shares that he is often asked about the beloved role whether in an airport or a brief run-in with fans.

In an interview with Rolling Out, the 50-year-old expressed that the ultimate direction of Ghost’s story line was not the message he personally wanted to send to the Black community.

“I had no issue with Ghost dying. I had an issue with the way the story started going. That’s not the way to start. He was originally the anti-hero’s hero. He was an anti-hero hero.”

“He started becoming non-heroic, which wasn’t what I signed up for. It took a direction that I wasn’t too keen on and many of the fans obviously have spoken and were not too keen on it. 50 Cent gave this beautiful gift of a character. What he did was he made this character have a few negative turns in life. … “

Onari said, “Had he not gone on those left turns and gone on the right turns, this dude would be someone who’s doing the things he’s trying to rightly do. Ghost was in his own way.”

“But he was the parent who actually was trying to be the great parent. So you don’t have him shot. You don’t have Naturi Naughton’s character shot. You have no one shot by a child. That one got [to] me as Omari. You got me here speaking to young kids. I had no problem with Ghost [being taken] off the board, but it was the way he was taken off [that bothered me].”

He added, “Eminem rapped about putting his mom in the trunk. I don’t mind him doing that but as Black people, we’re not rapping about putting mom in the trunk. Even if moms have done worse than him … we don’t do that. “

Omario also shared that he has no issue with fellow Power actor Michael Rainey Jr. taking center stage as a leading actor. He also says that the way the show ended caused havoc on Michael’s personal life.

“Watching young beautiful Michael Rainey Jr. as a character having to take that on, and then he caught s— in the street for that as Michael. That’s someone I helped raise. I was like a father to the kid. That was a lot for me. That’s when fiction meets reality kind of too aggressively.”

Since Power ended, the series has been able to expand into a multi-verse of spin-offs: Power Book II: Ghost, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and Power Book IV: Force.

The Starz network shocked fans following their announcement earlier this year that Ghost and Force will be ending after their fourth season.