As a kid, DeMayo was a textbook example of “best little boy in the world syndrome,” 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 “a lot” of sexual abuse while at school—something he was reluctant to talk about. “That’s why people are like, ‘Oh, your life is X-Men.’ I would always run to superheroes to deal with that pain and deal with feeling different,” he said.
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, and then spent two seasons writing for Netflix’s The Witcher 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 writers, claiming they didn’t appreciate or even “actively mock[ed]” the show’s source material.
“It’s a recipe for disaster and bad morale,” DeMayo continued. “Fandom as a litmus test checks egos, and makes all the long nights worth it. You have to respect the work before you’re allowed to add to its legacy.” (Neither Netflix nor The Witcher’s showrunner responded to Vanity Fair’s request for comment).
After The Witcher, DeMayo returned to Marvel to write for the Oscar Isaac–led series Moon Knight and, after a lengthy pitch process in front of Marvel CEO Kevin Feige, won the X-Men ’97 gig. “I knew I got the job because when we finished Kevin sat back and was like, ‘Man, the X-Men are so cool,’” DeMayo told me. “I 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.”
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.
“The 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,” said DeMayo in a 30-minute video called “Marvel-Disney Statement,” which he first posted on his OnlyFans page on September 4, 2024—shortly after he filed his suit against Marvel.
During our second interview in November 2024, DeMayo told me that he felt belittled by his colleagues due to his identity: “Oh, you don’t look like a showrunner,” DeMayo alleged that his X-Men ’97 colleagues would say, or “you don’t look like a writer.” Their message was clear, said DeMayo: “There was that vibe that I was the DEI hire, where, ‘Oh, they just got a gay Black guy because he checks all the marks and it’s X-Men.’”
