Actor Terrence Howard‘s newest interview will leave you outright speechless. From his mindblowing temper, to addmitting he was violent with his ex wives and being dubbed “difficult” to work with, the star of Empire reveals some of his most challenging moments, both professionally and personally.
According to Rolling Stone:
Another problem Howard has is his temper. He’s been escorted off a plane for unruly behavior. He’s punched out strangers in a restaurant. He’s said to have knocked at least two of his women around, most recently ex-wife Michelle Ghent, who after a 2013 trip to Costa Rica with Howard was photographed with a black eye. She said Howard did it. He either denies the allegations or shades the circumstances or has outright justifications.
That time in 2001 when he was arrested for slugging his first wife (who he married in 1989, divorced in 2003 remarried in 2005, and divorced again in 2007), which led to a guilty plea for disorderly conduct? According to the police report, he had “punched her twice with a closed fist.”
About that one, he is contrite. “She was talking to me real strong, and I lost my mind and slapped her in front of the kids,” he says. “Her lawyer said it was a closed fist, but even slapping her was wrong.”
And what happened in Costa Rica with Ghent? “She was trying to Mace me,” he says, “and you can’t see anything so all you can do is try to bat somebody away, and I think that something caught her. But I wasn’t trying to hit her.”
And the 2005 incident in the restaurant? When Howard and a couple were waiting in line to be seated, they got into an argument that didn’t end until Howard knocked the man to the ground and hit the woman.
Howard says he wasn’t even in any line. He’d just gone to check out the wait time for a table. The woman accused him of cutting in front of her and one thing led to another, with him acting in self-defense. He pleaded guilty, once again, to disorderly conduct.
He also dished on his upbringing in Cleveland:
One of the oddest things is how the 2005 restaurant incident echoes what happened with his father, Tyrone, then a 21-year-old unemployed laborer, at that Cleveland department store in 1971. It too started off as an argument about who was next in a line. One man, who had three of his kids with him, accused Tyrone of cutting in front of them with his own three kids, including two-year-old Terrence, and his pregnant wife, Anita. It boiled over into violence, and somehow, Tyrone got hold of a nail file, stabbed the guy until he fell, then fled the scene. The crime made national news and became known as the “Santa Line Slaying.”
“I was standing next to my father, watching,” Howard says. “Then stuff happened so quickly — blood was on the coats, on our jackets — and then my dad’s on a table and then my dad is gone to prison.”
Leaning into the softness of the sofa, he continues, “My daddy taught me, ‘Never take the vertebrae out of your back or the bass out of your throat. I ain’t raisin’ sheep. I raised men. Stay a man.’ But being a man comes with a curse because it’s not a society made for men to flourish anymore. Everything is androgynous, you know? The more successful men now are the effeminate.” Which is another attitude that has gotten him heat. Not that he cares. “The people that judge you don’t matter. They’re not real. Everything is just frequencies.”
He picks up one of his intricate plastic what-is-its and holds it to his eyes. “Like with these things,” he says. “In those four years where I was shunned and walked away from everything, look at what I’ve created. But I was not trying to make this when I made it, I was just trying to find the four forces, so I took four planes and put them together where they fit naturally, an equilateral triangle, and it created a circle, a triangle and a square, and from there everything else was created just following my hands leading to a good place.”
He steps across the room, considers some other objects — straight lines and curves in plastic, clear and colored, bending and unbent, stitched together with copper wire, soldered in places — and returns with a roundish one.
“Since I was a child of three or four,” he says, “I was always wondering, you know, why does a bubble take the shape of a ball? Why not a triangle or a square? I figured it out. If Pythagoras was here to see it, he would lose his mind. Einstein, too! Tesla!” He shakes his head at the miracle of it all, his eyes opening wide, a smile beginning to trace itself, like he’s expecting applause or an award. And all you can do is nod your head and try to follow along. He just seems so convinced that he’s right. And that he is about to change the world.
Being dubbed difficult to work with:
“Well,” he says, “I was difficult, but only because I would not conform. During The Best Man, they kept saying about this one line, ‘This is a joke, so say it as a joke.’ I was like, ‘Y’all do what you want, but I’m not going to mutilate this moment.’ And I said the line like I wanted, pausing before saying, ‘Y’all know there ain’t nothin’ better than pussy, except some new pussy.’ That seals my character, who he was. But after that, they spent the next year talking about how difficult I was. Then the movie comes out, I get all these accolades, and now the producers are like, ‘Oh, you made the movie.’ But now they’ve set it up that Terrence is difficult, and so that has followed me.”
Does he get points for admitting his issues or is it too little too late?
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(Photo Source: PR Photos)
