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Christopher “Big Black” Boykin, former co-star of MTV’s Rob & Big and bodyguard to professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek has passed away.

TMZ reports that Boykin passed away from a heart attack Tuesday morning. Boykin rose to fame in the mid-2000s as co-star of Rob & Big where he and Dyrdek went on random adventures that included purchasing mini-horses and filming rap videos.

The MTV show stopped airing in 2008 after their relationship became strained over creative differences. In an interview with People Magazine, Dyrdek explained what it was like at the time saying:

I had been a pro skateboarder for years, so me transitioning to mainstream fame was relatively smooth, right, where for him, the idea that man he was like working security two years earlier and now he’s on television, it was a much different dynamic. But I think we both struggled with I didn’t want to be known as like Rob from Rob & Big… and I think he didn’t want to be known for like the sidekick. So that created a lot of that tension between me and him…

“I think it was more the fundamental struggle of wanting to not be so connected to each other,” Dyrdek added. “Ultimately, after we had a big blowout creatively over an idea … things were so tense at certain times — it’s funny now that I think about it — but we literally would film some of the funniest things that we have ever done and would be losing it and then walk away and not talk to each other. It was super, super bizarre.”

The two of them would eventually patch things up as Boykin also appeared on Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory MTV show. Here’s how people are reacting to the news. Boykin was 45 and leaves behind a wife and 9-year old daughter.

Photo: WENN.com