Lee Daniels told Adweek that Lucius is based on "many shades of me," but the juicier explanation is: "He's a lot a bit of Berry Gordy, a lot a bit of Joe Kennedy." The Kennedys may seem like a far leap from the Lyons, but Daniels equates Joe Kennedy's rise to power through bootlegging with Lucious's drug dealing.
Daniels also drew inspiration for Lucious from his own father, even though his dad was a cop in Philadelphia instead of a drug kingpin-turned-music-mogul. Remember that heart-wrenching scene in which Lucious puts Jamal in the trash can for wearing his mother’s heels? That really happened.
Daniels told the story to the graduating class of Ohio State University: “When I was five, my earliest memory was walking down the stairs in my mother’s red high heel shoes, and my dad — he’s a cop — is down playing cards with the boys and it was not pretty — at all. He put me in a trash can and he said that I would never be nothing. He said, 'You already have it bad, boy, cause you're black — now you're a f*ggot too.'"
Cocreator Danny Strong came right out and told the Sway in the Morning radio show that Lucious is inspired by Jay Z. Strong cited Jay Z's criminal past as the source of Lucious's drug-game experience.
Yet there are a ton of other opinions out there as well. Vulture thinks Lucious might be more than a little bit Suge Knight, who founded Death Row Records, and was also rumored to have been involved in the deaths of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.
Sean "Diddy" Combs is rumored to have filed a lawsuit against the show, claiming it ripped off his life story for the character of Lucious.
