Before You GET ANGRY In Life, WATCH THIS! (Most Eye-Opening Speech) | Terry Crews

One of the things I knew that my desire to get strong and my desire to have power and to be really, really just, I was obsessed with muscle even as a little kid because I knew one day I might have to kill my father.

I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

Your book is called Tough, you, Journey to True Power. And you are the epitome of the tough, strong bodybuilder football guy. for a long time and you portrayed this image in movies, TV and all these different things. Why do you feel like you had that anger inside of you and when did you realize that you needed to let it go?

Well, wow, that's a great, great question, man. You know, for me, you know, my world was designed around competition. Yeah. You know, growing up in Flint, Michigan, it was in the middle when the auto industry imploded. You know, I was around 10 years old, and then the crack epidemic happened at the same time. So you're talking about a double whammy on a city. And so it was very violent. you know, lots of crime, lots of drugs, lots of gangs, lots of powerlessness is what I like to call it.

People felt power less.

Especially me. Because you couldn't do anything about it. You know, one thing that people didn't know or forgot is when around that time in the city, there were these smokestacks around the city. And what they were doing were burning foreign cars. And I remember just seeing you walk to school and you go across a parking lot in this factory and they'd be burning a car and effigy and throwing rocks at it. And, you know, we ain't gonna have them damn, you know, Toyotas up in here, you know, 'cause it was foreign. And it just hit me about how, you know, the problem was the city was very resistant to change. But change is inevitable. And this is what I was going through. But it was also about competition. It was always about, okay, it's got to be me versus this dope man. It's got to be me versus this gang initiation that they're trying to bring me into. It's got to be me versus the grown men in my neighborhood and in my area that were always challenging me. as a young man. So you had to come up. And it made me very mad.

Really?

And growing up with an alcoholic father on top of all that.

Big Terry.

Whitney Big Terry. You know, I was little Terry. He was Big Terry. And you know, one of my earliest memories is him knocking my mother out. And I was like, got it, man. You run the world right now until I do.

Ooh.

I'm gonna tell you now. How were you then? Oh, I was five.

Oh, man.

I was five. But I have to tell you, one of the things I knew that my desire to get strong and my desire to have power and to be really, really just, I was obsessed with muscle even as a little kid because I knew one day I might have to kill my father.

Oh, my gosh.

He was that dude. Wow. He was just, he was unending. never bending, just constant intimidation. You know what I mean?

Fear, intimidation.

You just didn't, you know, you never felt comfortable. You never felt like he accepted you. You always felt like something was wrong, you doing it wrong, you didn't iron your pants enough, you didn't do something enough, you didn't clean enough. You just felt always inadequate. And that was the mindset of a lot of men in that culture, in the city at the time I was growing up. And it wasn't gonna let you, they weren't gonna let you off easy. But when you asked them questions, they would never answer them.

Why not?

I don't know. See, that blew my mind because I was like, okay, just tell me what you want. And they're like, well, one day you're gonna find out. Let me tell you, one day, one day you'll get it. And you're like, but I'm 12. Can you give me a clue? Like, and man, It was, I mean, it was only after I grew up when I realized that they didn't know. So that was a kind of a cop out. But it made me, I had a vow with my best friend and we were about 13, 14 years old. Because this was such a big problem. Like his dad would never talk to him.

Really?

My dad would never talk to me and the older adults wouldn't, you know, they would, the only thing they would tell you about is how to be a pimp. You know, like, man, you want two or three girls? Let me tell you how to do it. You know, this is the game you gotta run. You're like, that's the only thing they would volunteer. But any of the other life stuff, like, what does this mean? What does life mean? What's the true meaning of this? Right. You ain't getting that. Go to church for that. And the whole concept with a lot of men in that world was that if you scared, go to church. Church was for scared people.

Interesting.

You know what I mean? No, no, we're too tough for that, you know? And what was so wild is we made a vow. And we made a vow, me and my best friend, that, you know, we would, I said, if you find out something before I do, promise me that you'll tell me. And if I find out anything that you need to know before you do, I'll tell you. And we literally shook on it. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the day we did it.

Did you guys start telling each other advice or wisdom?

We were just trying to find out stuff, like, oh man, check this out. this is in school and this is this and this is this will this will get you to this level. And man, we got to start working out and man, we got to do this, you know, because we were just alone. Yeah. I mean, this is in the early days of even fitness. Yeah.

There was no information on fitness really about how to build your build your muscles.

Yeah. No, we would get I remember ordering the books at the back of comic books. You ever get sand kicked in your face? And you know, and I would get this little book and it had like drawings of people exercising. And then they had an old exerciser thing that was like a, it looked like a bow and arrow. And then you would just push it together and it had a string and you just do that. It was like primitive. But we were like eating anything up just to improve our lives. And it was a really, the competitive culture created in me this thing. And when we talk about rage, what we're talking about is an attempt to control things you can't control.

Because what couldn't you control at that time?

Nothing. Outside, I just looked and it was like, I had to do what everyone told me. And, you know, my father was addicted to alcohol, but my mother was addicted to religion. And he despised that. you know, because, again, it was weak to him.

But she was living in fear.

And she was living in fear. And so she's like, hey, we, we got to run under the protection of the church. But it was a, basically, as a Christian cult, I grew up in a church called the Church of God in Christ. And it was so, it was what you would call holy roller. You know, it was a lot of speaking in tongues and a lot of music and shouting and falling out and people running around and the whole thing. And I remember just feeling like I wanted that. I wanted to be close to that. Like I said, okay, this is what God is, but I never felt it. Like I was going, when is it going to take me? Because I see everybody jumping and running and shouting and I'm like, and it was like, Well, you just gotta feel it. And I was like, but I don't feel it. And no one would tell me what was going on. I mean, no one. My mother, my people in the church, I would be asking, like, when do you know how this feels? Like, is it supposed to grab you? And they were like, oh, if you don't, let me tell you, the day it freaked me out is what my pastor looked at me and he said, you, don't feel nothing. You must not have nothing.

Ooh, man, that's not fair.

I went what?

So it's like forces you to try to act like you feel something to fit in or belong or.

Oh, yeah. And now I'm bad.

Oh, man.

And so I learned real quick. I said, man, you gotta have two lives. You gotta be this way in church. You gotta be this. I mean, my. My father and mother fought constantly because of that. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it was all about, listen, everything that I do now, I couldn't do as a kid. I couldn't play sports. I couldn't go to secular movies. I couldn't listen to secular music. I couldn't dance. I couldn't do anything. When I say nothing, I mean, I remember I was like, what can I do? And they were like, sit down and shut up is what you can do.

Wow.

And what I would do is listen to kids at school talk about the movies. They would talk about all the stuff that they saw and all this stuff. And I remember going home and drawing what I thought the movie was about. And that's where my art ability came. I mean, it was hours of like imagining what this movie was.

How old were you when you started drawing and being, you know?

I was probably, probably six, seven years old. But I remember kids talking about things that I couldn't experience.

Did anyone teach you how to draw?

I learned off comic books.

'Cause you're so talented. I was in your stuff.

But see, you gotta understand.

See what you're- and then you would kind of mimic what you're- Exactly.

Any comic book or anything I saw, I would just try to, and let me tell you, I had the most frustrating experiences because nothing would look the same. And it was a desire for me to make things extremely real, and I wanted it to really come to life. And what would happen is I would be satisfied with the drawing, like, oh man, this is good. and I go to bed and wake up and it would look bad again. And you're talking about this for a young kid and then it just continued where this drive and this whole thing because it had to look better than this and it's gotta look better than yours. Well, you're talking about a world of competition. It created this excuse for your age. You know what I mean? And now, I'm gonna tell you, man, what happened for me and especially once I hit my teen years, I started living my life like I was in a revenge movie.

Trying to get back at everyone, everything, the world, your dad.

Remember the vow I made with my best friend? I made a lot of vows. And I vowed that I was gonna get every person who ever doubted me, whoever insulted me, whoever made me feel slightly uncomfortable, I was going to get you back. Wow. And I was going to show you. Now, let me tell you something. That is a recipe for tremendous success. You understand what I mean? Like, people expect you, oh, no, it's going to fall. No.

And also, a lack of fulfillment, a lack of joy, a lack of peace inside of you.

Now.

Because I was so similar. I wanted to prove everyone wrong. and I accomplished all these goals and I was like, but why am I still unfulfilled and angry?

Listen, you- why am I so angry? You get a lot done.

A lot done. I'm obsessed.

Extra energy. You know what I mean? 'Cause I'm like, I'm fully out. I'm fully out. Yeah. You gotta understand, man, I would go and I remember I would do this stuff where I would go work out and then I would work out until I couldn't move. And then I would rest up and then I would go and I would flex my muscles until they cramped. and I forced my muscles into cramps. It was sadistic. It was masochistic, Yeah. But I said No one. I want this. Like, I will never stop doing sit ups. I will never I you know, b again a sit ups and push ups until my stomach until I was curled over in tears. Oh myd I go do more And because I said no one' was going to beat me. Well ever, ever, ever beat me. Listen, understand this, man. You know what's so crazy? I didn't even like football.

Really?

Didn't like it at all. But it was my way out of Flint. It was also my way to code black. And this is what I mean.

To code what?

Code black. Meaning in the black culture, sports coded like hardcore. And it was the way the drug dealers, the gang members, everybody would leave you alone if they knew you were an athlete.

Why is that?

Because they said, this man, he might go somewhere. He might do something. He might be, because you gotta understand, walking to school, here they come. I had to fight my way into school because it was like, who do you think you are? Okay, oh Mr. Smart, you smart now, huh? And you're like, man, Why you talk so white? All right, so what I did, I remember developing a whole 'nother personality when I was out in the street. Ah man, what's up man? Ah, you know, I don't even, you know what I mean? Yeah, boy. Right. And I would mimic that just so I could fit in for a while, right? Yeah. You wouldn't, you have ideas, you had goals, you had things you wanted, and all of a sudden you knew, you didn't dumb down.

Wow.

They were like, wait, man, who you think you are? Remember, everything's a competition. Yeah. So you think you're smarter than me? Nah, man. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just. But here I was, this artist drawing, really trying to excel, had ideas, had visions, being a creative person.

You play music too, right?

Yeah, I was a flautist. Crazy. Listen, I hit that. I was able to do that in church. However. Oh, man. But see, this is another thing about the religion thing, which was nuts, is that, you know, here I was just, you know, I was a pleaser. I became a pleaser. It was like, all right, please my mom, whatever, please the alcoholic dad, whatever you want. Here's another beer, here's whatever. And my mother, what I decided was I was gonna be the best, you know, kid in the church. But then my church was a cult. It was crazy because a lot of it didn't make any sense. And it really hit the fan when my pastor, we found out my pastor was selling drugs and using drugs out of the pulpit. He had several girlfriends in the church. I mean, everything imploded. And everyone thought this guy who was so upstanding, because this thing even with religion is that, You know, everybody starts out with great intentions, you know?

And then power and success and money and people praising you, you gotta learn to really stay humble in the face of success or fame.

Exactly.

How have you managed that?

I mean, for a long time, I didn't.

Really?

I'm just being real. You know, there's two Terry Crews and there's two experiences. you know, the competitive Terry Crews was not humble. The competitive Terry Crews would look humble so that you could be lulled into sleep so that I could destroy you.

Wow.

I'm just telling you, man.

When was this up until?

Oh, my God. I mean, we're talking 2010.

Okay.

Wow. You know, and I was an intense dude, man. You understand? I knew. I said, this is how I work.

You were intense or still intense?

Well, I'm still intense.

But I've learned a different way.

You know? My thing was, man, I knew how to manipulate. Really?

What was the strategy?

Well, I would look at whatever scene it was and what the rules were. And I knew how to play the game.

Wow.

But it was always to beat people.

To one up, to be number one. To be a little bit better than or-- Always.

I mean, it got me through the NFL.

Of course.

I mean, dude, it goes a long way. Like I said, I didn't even like football, but that way of life, the NFL was like, come here, we like you. You know what I mean? Oh, you gonna be good. They say the phrase I heard before is that the best soldiers know how to check their morality to the side, keep it away. you're a good soldier. Don't think about what's right or wrong. Don't really get that out of your psyche.

What's good and bad.

Now, yeah, now you can do whatever we need. And I determined that I was gonna be that dude, like whatever it took. And you gotta understand is that this kind of mindset is very rewarded, of course. It's very, you know, I was tough. I was, you know, in this rage, but also I could turn it on to the point where I could beat people up. Like, I could start, I started to defend myself. You know, I got from being a little kid to being a big teenager to being to, you know, what they say, he's got a little neck. You know what I mean? Like when you get some traps and you get they like, whoa, okay. Gang members think twice. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're like, all right, all right. Because again, everything's a challenge, right?

Yeah.

To an exhausting level.

Was there ever a point where you felt like you were strong enough and big enough to beat up your dad?

Well, I did. How old were you? I was 30 years old. Really? I, you gotta understand the context of what happened. My father, you know, I was already, I just started my acting career and I just got a show. It was a TV show called Battledome. I retired from the NFL. And again, I was around 29, 30 years. No, I was 30 years old. So I took my family home for Christmas and I told my father, Back to Flint. Back to Flint from LA. And I told my father, Do not act up, man. Because this is the thing about holidays for alcoholics. Oh man, it's the worst, man. I mean, they go right back. It's all the bad memories and they need to placate and they need to medicate with, alcohol. And I said, man, look, my kids have never seen this. My kids never came up in this. And at the time, I had three girls. And I said, dude, do not act up, okay? And he said, no, I ain't gonna do nothing, man. Ain't nothing wrong with you. I don't know what you're talking about. So I take him home, and we all over there, everything's going fine. My wife and I are headed to Detroit to hang out with some friends. So it's about a 45-minute drive. We're about 10 minutes into the drive, and I get this call from my aunt. And she's like, Terry, your father hit your mother.

Oh.

I said, what?

Oh man.

And what happened, he knocked her tooth sideways. Like it was hanging out of her mouth. And I mean, he hit her right in the mouth. Oh man. And then I found out, Louis, he did it in front of my kids.

Oh no.

And they were all privy to this. Something that I've- your trigger went in deep. I said, take the kids.

Oh my God.

Over to Aunt's house. I said, just leave them there. I dropped my wife off. I drove over to the house and I'm looking at them and I met with them. I'm like, hey dude, did not tell you. And he was like, oh, man, f*** you. And I went, pow. And I mean, let me tell you something, man. I don't know how long the beating happened.

Oh my gosh.

I don't know.

'Cause you black out.

I black out.

And when you get to that level of rage, I know that feeling. You don't feel anything, you don't think anything. It's a, man, you know what?

Even, ooh, I'm getting, it's, it's, just thinking about it, it was so like, 'cause all I could remember was being like five years old. Wow. and feeling so weak and powerless as he was doing this to my mother. And we just had to take it. I was like, I can't, what can I do? He's a giant. You know what I mean? I can't do anything. And, man, now I'm 30 years old.

You're big, you're strong.

I posted, I fell. I've never had an injury. I'm ready to go.

And you got 30 years of pent-up.

Rage, 30 years of resentment. be his all over that house.

Wow.

And Louis, let me tell you, man, I felt nothing at the end. I thought this was it. I thought, this is the Revenge I've been waiting for. I told you not to do it. This is it. Now I'm. You're gonna get everything full for all Terry Crews is going to blast you. And when I was done, I remember I beat him from the bottom, all the way bottom of the house, all the way up to his room, because he was trying to run from me. And he ran into his room and I bust the door down, man. It kept beating him, right? He's on the ground in tears, bleeding tears, the whole thing. I'm sitting on this bed. Just look at my hands and I'm like, I'm just like you. Didn't work. It didn't work, man. It was supposed to work.

What were you hoping to feel?

I mean, release. Like, there it is. I said it right. You're supposed to feel justice. You're supposed to feel like this is this. Now the score has been settled. And when I say living life like a revenge movie, I mean it. But you gotta understand, that stuff is better than sex. Right. You look at a movie like that, you're like, man, yes, get them back. It feels good. Yeah. At a time, like yes. And here I was, I was living it. I was like, this is man on fire, live. You know what I'm saying? This is like get back city. This was a payback. And I was like, nothing. Nothing. And I was like, I'm done. And I left. And I never went home for 10 years. Really? 10 years. And my mom went right back to him. Didn't change any of the home situation. Didn't fix not one thing. And I was, I just remember going through all these issues. all this stuff like, oh my God, I lost it, man. And I couldn't go home. I couldn't even deal with it. And that was the thing that I said, that rage, it was uncontrollable. But I took it out on other people. And I never, even though I didn't beat him up again and didn't go back home, that rage was still in me.

It's still inside of you.

And I was doing that to various people on the street. There's a long list of people. who've been knocked out by me. And what's so crazy is that a lot of people go, oh, no, Terry, no. You're funny and you're so nice. My wife would be like, y'all don't even know. Y'all have no idea.

He wasn't so nice back then.

'Cause I could flip.

Of course.

Oh, no. You have to understand, you know, being two people and learning how to manipulate and move, you know, that's why it would shock everybody. Right.

'Cause you could be the lovable, fun, energetic, passionate guy, but if there was a wound that was being triggered, oh my God. the other day came out.

It would be a nuclear bomb.

Yeah, I know this.

I.

Feel like I can understand and relate to this feeling 'cause I had this for so long as well. I think I might have told you this story, but I was 30 years old as well when I realized I had a problem with anger and rage. And I was playing pickup basketball in West Hollywood, the mean streets of West Hollywood.

Wow, wow. It don't matter where it's at. Right, right.

This is West Hollywood. It's not like I'm in some bad neighborhood or something. And we're just playing pick up basketball with a bunch of 20 year olds, right? Some 20, 25 year olds. Everyone's just having fun.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, I would take everything so personally for months and I would shove people and I would, if they ever elbowed me, I felt I take it so personally, I would get angry if they try to talk trash to me. I would have to step to them to the point where I got in a pretty bad fight. Like, I just snapped. And I would never take the, I would never make the first hit. I would always wait for someone to hit me. And someone hit me and I snapped and I exploded. And I, kind of like what you talk about in the book here, you tell a story of you doing this. The old football me just like picked a guy up, body slammed him and just went on in the basketball court.

I know that.

And it's like I didn't feel anything of like pain. It's just like you just rage, right? And I remember afterwards going back to my place, like kind of shaking at this point because the police department is right across the street. I'm 30 years old. I just been building my career. I could have gotten injured. I could have gone to jail. Something could have happened where I blew everything. You talk about that moment in your life where you Tap with a guy, you're beating him up with your wife there, pregnant wife, and the cops come to start to arrest you. It could have been over one bad decision. I remember looking myself in the mirror after this, shaking with blood all over my knuckles, looking in the mirror, and I couldn't recognize myself. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I go, who are you? What is wrong with you? And it was terrifying to me to realize what I was still capable of, even though I wasn't playing football, because that was the outlet. That was the legal outlet to destroy someone, right? And not go to jail. And I realized at that point that I had a problem and I needed to work on it. And it's been a nine-year journey of healing ever since with therapy. What has been the thing for you? When was the last straw where you said, I can't react in this way with anger towards fighting, physical fighting someone? I can't react with screaming or other things like that. When did you realize, like, I can't overcome this by suppressing it. I need to heal it.

Well, my wife made me promise, okay?

When was this?

This was right after we, this was around 2008, 2009, and I had beat this guy up on the street.

Was that the story in the book here?

Or is it the start of the book? Yeah, it's crazy story. Put this guy on the concrete. Just body slamming him. Boom. Dude, it was too much. Wait, it was way overkill. You know, like, like, you could have.

Just shown the guy had walked away.

You see what I mean? No, it was so bad. Because you was talking about Christmas shoppers and people everywhere and broad, it was, I remember the sun was going down, but it was still like the, People walking around, people screaming and running and police coming and them holding their hands on their guns. Oh, no, man. And I'm stomping this dude like Nino Brown.

Like, it's, it's, and you're a massive dude.

And she said, now he disrespected her. Right. He disrespected her. Right. And she was like, but Terry.

You can't do that, though.

Yeah. She's, listen, I got away because there was an older white man in the crowd. He came out, he says, officer, officer, 'cause I was either going to jail or getting shot. And this old white man comes out, no, no, no, no, no, no. 'Cause he sees the police about to do what they're about to do.

This is pre-social media, this is pre-videos.

This is pre- First of all, I'm gonna say it, this is pre-George Floyd. Yeah, because there wasn't, I mean, I could have been shot that day. Yeah. that's for real. And this older white man jumped out and said, I've already had guns pointed at me and literally in traffic and whole thing. And it's, I mean, there's never a feeling, and I didn't do anything wrong. That's the craziest part about it. So my wife was like, oh, my God, you are not going to get anybody. Nobody's going to fight you. Nobody's going to wrestle with you. It's just going to shoot. Yeah. No cop is gonna even get close. So she pulled me to this, after this all, he's like, oh, you know, I saw the whole thing. They didn't do anything. They were bothering them and the whole thing, and the officers decided to let me go. Were you already cuffed or was he.

Starting to try to cuff you or? Oh, no, no.

He was starting. Oh, no. They weren't cuffing. I'm trying to tell you, they had their hands on the guns.

Oh, man. They were pulling the guns out.

So the white guy came in and kind of stopped it all. He saw what was about to happen. Okay, my wife was right there and it was pandemonium 'cause people were like, ah!

Did you ever meet this guy later? This guy?

No, I don't, never, never. I don't know what, again, I blacked out.

Right, right, right.

I don't even know, if he stood in front of me, I wouldn't know what he looked like. Wow. If he caught, he probably met, I probably met him again a few years later. You know what I mean? I don't know. Right. But what was so crazy, is that that night, my wife sat me down. She said, Terry, you gotta promise me, man, you can never, ever. She said, listen, I'll be okay. But we, first of all, you're gonna get sued for one, because you, you, you know, we just now make money. You're still famous. You know, you reached the level of Fame where you kind of getting up there. It was like right after we did longest yard, you know what I mean? So she's like, okay. First of all, you're gonna get sued. But secondly, I know how close those cops came to killing you. And then she said, you, got kids, man. It's like, we want you. We want you to live. What am I gonna do if you're dead? What am I gonna do? I said, you can't do this. Like, you don't get this. I don't know. Somebody else might, but you can't, 'cause you're not gonna get a second shot. Nope. And listen, and the whole time, I'm like, come on, please. I was like, you know what? No, no, I'm a man, shoot.

No, somebody came at me like that.

I got no choice. And she said, well, Terry, I don't know what to tell you. She said, because if you don't get a hold of this, it's over.

Eventually something's gonna happen.

And I said, she said, you,'ve got to promise. I said, okay, I promise. Right? But you gotta understand my level of rage. Now, this is something, and again, I probably, I'm gonna kill, I wrote it in the book, but it's so horrible, It's a horrible, horrible moment. Share it. I had a dog who would eat its poop. And I hated it. It was just like, oh my God. Like, oh. Every time I would do it, and I see it licking on the kid's face, and I was just like, Stop, stop. But again, I was mad all the time. Always angry. Dude, it's me. I'm alone, alone with the dog. Dog starts pooping. Turn right around and start going to town. I'm like, dude, I ran outside and I threw this dog across the lawn.

Oh, man.

When I say this was a blackout moment. Mm-. The dog flew across the lawn like a Frisbee, right? And Lands breaks its leg.

Oh, no.

So yelp. I still remember.

Oh, sad.

My kids walk in. On the moment the dog lands, the kids come in from shopping with my wife. And they're like, the dog's name was Coffee. They're like, Coffee! Oh man. And his leg is bent back here. Listen, man. Again, people are gonna hate me for this story, of course. And you should, because it was vile. It was ridiculous. It was over the top. The dog didn't deserve it. Right. Nothing a dog could do, you know, it was like a child. Yeah. You understand? I mean, it was abusive. It was crazy. And wait, the minute I threw him, I regretted it. Like, ah. Yeah. And I was like, and then all I remember sitting there is just going, why? How did I do this? Like, why did I? I was in tears, man. How am I, I can't control myself. Why? You know, like, there's nothing scarier than knowing there's something in you that could push the nuclear button at any time. And wait, and you can't stop it? I mean, I have no control over my own life.

Right.

So whatever you say could make me do it. Whatever, anything that the dog eating this, made me do it. And I'm going, wait a minute, I can't tell myself no. I have no control over anything. And that hit me. I was going, holy cow. And my wife was just like, Derek, what's wrong with you? And man, I can't count the number of events, theme park, gathering, different stuff we give with the family. And one thing would make me go off and I'd ruin the whole day for everybody. And I thought, here I was thinking, I'm better than my dad because I didn't do this. I didn't hit my mom. You weren't drinking, you weren't hitting my mom. I wasn't drinking. Hey, I'm successful. In fact, I'm famous. In fact, people love me. But inside, It was horrible, man. It was horrible. And I had no control.

So when was the moment then where you were able to look at yourself and realize, I have either conquered this inner rage, beast, whatever you want to call it, and you do have control?

Well, I have to go, now we go flash forward.

Yes.

Okay. My wife and I had been through, First of all, in 2010, it was the end of our marriage. We had been married 20 years. And this whole time, I had had an addiction to pornography, and I had never told her. And 10 years earlier, I had basically cheated on her at a massage parlor. But I vowed I'd never tell anybody. I vowed, I said, Man, I'm taking this to my grave. It's not happening. But see, you gotta understand another thing, too. Is this competition, but also this guilt that I will always carrying creates rage. Because of that. Yeah, yeah, because of that. Creates rage.

Yeah, of course.

And shame. Shame. I used to get into arguments. So she asked me questions like, have you ever, do you watch porn? Hey, no, don't even bring that up. What are you talking about?

You know what?

No, listen, I don't know who you think you are. And start an argument. So she'd be like, I'm out. Just so she wouldn't bring up more. 'Cause I knew what I was doing. Right. And I knew that I wasn't living right. I mean, the one thing is, it's almost like, you know, you say one lie, and it turns into two, turns into ten.

It eats you inside of you, too.

You're talking about 10 years now. I vowed, I would never tell anybody. And my wife was always like, she would just bring up stuff like, what is it? What are you doing, man? I don't know. You ever cheat on me? Stuff like that. And I'm like, nah, I don't know what you're talking about, you know? And angry, angry. And what you would do, and one thing that I would do is project.

Of course.

So I was like, why are you saying that? Are you thinking about cheating? You know, in turn, and again, this manipulative game that you could play with the people you love, people who love you, or you claim to love. just so you can keep your thing together. You know what I mean? And let me, this is the thing, Louis, is that I realized that the image of Terry Crews was more important than who Terry Crews was. Dang. And I had to worship that image. Whoa. And it ran everything.

'Cause what would happen if who Terry Crews was really came out instead of the image, what would happen then?

Well, my mindset, I had a play. I was like, I'd lose everything. First of all, my wife would leave. People who knew me would be ashamed. People who knew me would be, they would run away. Everybody would be done. All of it would be finished. Every bit of who I, you know, if people found out who I really, really was, or what I was really, really thinking and contemplating, how I had done, then it would be the end of me. Wow. So I decided, and we're gonna put this image up and we're gonna prop it up. And it's like having an image on these really weak posts, you know what I mean? It would get bumped and it's like waves swaying and you're doing everything you can to hold, I gotta put another beam up on there just to hold it up because it's getting rickety and the longer it goes, The more wicked it gets, and it all fell, 2010. And my wife was like, I'm out. I'm done. And because what happened was she finally asked me, because we had just been getting farther and farther apart over the years. And she said, what is it I don't know about you, Terry Crews? And I told her. I told her about what happened 10 years earlier. Now in my head, I'm like, Hey, that was 10 years ago. But for her, it was today. And she was like, I know. Wow. Don't come home. And what I realized is that she had married an image. And what she realized is that she didn't know me. She was like, who are you? And I let her stay in that. And one thing about men is that what we're looking for is intimacy. Like literally someone who knows us inside and out and loves us anyway. But if you never reveal who you really are, you can never ever have intimacy.

Amen to that.

You understand what I mean? You can't. It's impossible because you have to know who you are.

Absolutely. You have to share who you are.

But the game is not to share who you are. So you can have sex all day. Lots of sex. Because that's still part of the image. But it doesn't have anything to do with intimacy.

Want it.

Anything to do with someone. This is why you always love your mom. Because your mom knows who you are. Am I right?

Everything. Everything.

You know what I mean? She cleaned your nose. She wiped your butt. She knows when you lie, she knows the bad to you, she knows the good to you. Yeah. And she loves you anyway. That's why your mom, mom is queen of the world. But you didn't tell everything to this chick. No. To this lady.

Hell yeah.

To your wife. Mm-. I'm like, oh my God. And Duke, years of therapy, I finally went in. to deal with these issues, man. Now, the thing about in my culture, where I grew up, no one does therapy. The mind was, you can't cure crazy. That was the phrase that would say, you can't cure crazy. And then you're talking about in religious circles, they were like, oh, you're gonna get them demons. The demons are gonna come if you go to psychology. They're gonna mess with your brain and make you crazy. So my father, there was one time my father went to a psychologist to get help for his alcoholism. And a week later, the psychologist jumped off a bridge. And I was like, what?

Wow. Huh?

Oh man. He jumped off a bridge, man. And I said, okay, that'll work. That's not gonna work.

So, no.

And I thought these guys are gonna make me crazy. So that was the thing. Like, when that broke for me, when my wife left, I was at My wits in, like I said, man, I gotta try this therapy stuff, you know, 'cause I'd heard enough about it over the years.

What was the greatest lessons therapy has taught you, though?

Man, assembly required, okay? When I say this, we all think we as men or people are as good as we are. We just take me as I am. We make songs about it. Take me just as I am. No, no, no, no, no. But the problem is this thing is, it's like, it's not anybody else's job to assemble you. You are like Legos, okay? Legos come in a box. You shake the box, it's just pieces. And in a very competitive world, people tell you, you're broke. Hey man, look at your box. You broke it. But what I learned is that you're never, you're not broken. You're just not finished. you. It's up to you to assemble yourself. You have to work on you. You have to take off parts that are bad or broke or that don't fit. Because nothing's broken. It's just things don't fit. And you pull it off and you put it back together the right way. It's like when you go. But you got to go deep and you got to go down with computers. It's a bit. with property or the minerals, it's atoms. And with human beings, it's genes. I mean, it's down into the core. You get one little gene and you can rebuild yourself. That's what I got from therapy. I was like, holy cow, you can take the bat out. It's not automatic. You know, a lot of people have said, it's either nature versus nurture. But nurture always works, no matter what your nature started out as. You understand what I mean? Like, nurture is, you're in the wood, nature is you're born naked in the woods. But nurture is you learn to make a coat and put it on. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You can build a house. You can build a building. Yeah. You can build a whole society. That's what nurture does. I said, wait a minute, you don't have to stay naked in the woods. But my mentality was what? I had to stay naked in the woods. That's where I was born. So that's it.

Was there a moment in therapy where you, whether it was 12 years ago or more recently, where you had an aha moment or something you felt shift inside of you? There's. I've been doing therapy for the last year, almost every two weeks for the last year, and I've done it at different stages over the last 10 years, but not consistently until the last year. There was one moment for me where something shifted. I had an aha moment and the pain in my chest went away and it hasn't come back since. And I finally felt like I was assembling myself and rebuilding myself up to a place where I could feel that peace, where I don't have to... There's always something inside of me that knows I could turn a switch at any moment if I wanted to into that type of personality and that rageful energy, but I also don't want that to ever come out. And so I keep myself on a level of peace. Was there anything like that during therapy that you're like, oh, it actually, not in my thoughts, I can think it, but I feel something different about the rage.

Man, you know what hit me out of everything, one of the most powerful, powerful moments was my realization of what shame really was. Now, you gotta understand, growing up, shame was used as a tool. Everybody used it. From the church to sports to, you should be ashamed to let that guy beat you on the outside. How could you let that happen? Or in church, like, oh, you should be so ashamed to even think those thoughts. How could you think that? And you're like, I don't know. And shame was a motivator, okay? It goes right along with the revenge movie. It starts with shame. It's a shame, shame, shame. And shame tells you you are bad, okay? In your default resting state, you're a bad person. So you have to do all these things to be good, which means it's only in your efforts You only get good things by working for it. Because just in your resting state, you're bad. So let's create this person that covers all this shame up. So you create an image. And you build that image and you worship it. But the bad you is still back here lurking and ready. And, ooh, it's just, ooh. And that's, listen, even in church, people were like, man, You know, you could feel it like, oh, don't be thinking about that, or, oh, you're just gonna snap. You know, I was like, Let's just get our minds on the Lord, you know? And shame was used that way. But in therapy, it blew my mind. I said, Hey, man, guilt is good. Shame is no good. And I went, They said, Guilt says you did something wrong. and you have to correct it.

Yeah, take accountability and yeah.

But shame just says you're just wrong.

You are wrong as a human.

You just, that's you. And I said, wait a minute, I'm good. I'm good in my resting state. And one thing that got me in therapy that hit me, man, I love this. I put it in the book, there's a picture of me, At about six years old, no teeth, no two front teeth, and I'm sitting here and it's just the cutest little picture. Like, look at this kid. And I had to ask myself, I said, is that kid bad? Oh, is that kid bad?

Wow.

I said, no. I said, but I'm that kid. I'm still that kid, Lewis. I'm still him. There's no point, at no point, In time did I change from being that kid. Right. Understand, you're still that kid. And wait, that's like calling a baby evil.

Bad and wrong, yeah.

How are babies evil? How is that? You can't. And I said, holy, I got this all wrong. That was the moment, like in therapy I was like.

Look at this. I'll show you this. Oh, look at this.

Yes, yes. That's you. You leave it right there. I keep it, I keep that same kind of picture that I put it in a book so you, everybody could see it, but I keep it on my desktop. Wow. On my computer. And I'm like, and you know what? I talk to it, man. Dude, I love this.

I love you, 'cause I've been talking about this with my audience about how I've had this for a year now on my phone. I keep meaning to change it recently because I feel like I've finally healed that hurt five, six, seven year old child that was inside of me. I've been doing the work on healing that. And it's been so much more powerful because it's not, I'm not coming from a place of hurt and reaction from that early childhood moments. It's from a healed place and rebuilding that foundation. And it sounds like that's what you've been doing. Dude, how long you been doing that?

Oh my God, years. I never thought. I talk to them all the time. First of all, when you look at a six-year-old, no, let's go even earlier, three, two. When they fall down, do you go, oh man, you should know how to walk by now. You should know how to do all this stuff by now. No, no. But you don't do that to yourself. As an adult, you don't give yourself another goal. You don't say, I was merciless to myself, man. because I was bad. Man, how could you do that, man? Get yourself together. Cuss yourself out. I used to cuss myself out. But then what happened is I would cuss everybody else out. Right, right. 'Cause everybody else, they're held by your same standard. Again, projection.

Of course.

And you would never give yourself forgiveness and relax and, hey man, you tried. It's okay. No. Dude, talking to that little boy, and I remember just going, Dude, that's you. And you gotta talk to yourself like that.

With love, with care.

You are good. You're not bad. But you gotta understand, in a very competitive world, people use that.

Oh, of course.

And what happens is people can tell you that you are. and that's the world I was in. The world I was in, the drug dealer was like, hey man, you ain't nothing but a nigga. Or, and go to church and they say, you're a sinner. You ain't nothing. Right. And you just, you don't feel nothing, you don't have nothing. This is stuff I was told when I was little. I was bad. Mm-. So, because I don't feel nothing. Right. So now, I can't have it. You understand, man. I grew up where the rapture was dangled in front of us at any moment, where if you did anything wrong and the rapture was gonna come and the rapture was Jesus was gonna come and take all the saints up into the sky and if you weren't right, you would be left behind. And the whole thing was you would be left to be, you know, tortured by the devil. That was the whole, and this is stuff, you know, as a four-year-old they would teach. And I was like, oh my God, like, but it was used to control us. Right. You want to be good, 'cause Jesus gonna come back, and he ain't gonna take you. And I was like, oh no, why wouldn't he take me? You got, man, you're talking about a life of horror. I spent most of my years, young years, scared. Yeah. because it was one of those things where the devil had more power than God did. Because it was like, hey, devil made me do it. And the devil could do all kinds of things. I was like, well, where is God gonna step in? You know what I mean? That was my mindset. Like, hey, you know, wow, they got powerful, right? Oh, but the devil, man, you gotta, he gonna get you. And you're like, oh, man, or Jesus was people's hitman, you know what I mean? Like, oh, he gonna knock you out. But I was just, and man, you gotta understand that framework created so much shame. Because I was like, everything I did, I was like, oh no, I'm bad, I'm going, oh, and I would pray and try to get back and other things, but you keep an impossible standard.

It's so hard, man.

You can't keep up.

Nah, man.

And there's a lot of people who understand this. Yeah, for sure. You know what I mean? Who've been, yeah. Manipulated by these kind of places and this kind of stuff. And it's one of those things where I go into therapy though, I was like, oh my God, that has nothing to do with me. Right.

Are you still good at therapy?

Yeah. Yeah, really.

I feel like the consistency of it is so powerful for me.

Oh yeah. I have to. I wake up in the morning and this is the good thing is I get it in books and and I still go occasionally to a person, but sometimes it's just constantly, constantly examining each thought, examining, is that me? Because this is another thing I even talk about in the book, is that a lot of your thoughts are not yours. You know, it's like an auxiliary cord and people plug in to your stuff. You pick up things and you're like, why do I'm not thinking that? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But that's not you. But if you think every thought is yours, and your thoughts determine your feelings, and your emotions determine your actions. And so if someone can get into your thoughts, they can change the way you feel. I just look at the state of America right now, and it seems to be almost in a state of a panic attack. You know, look at January 6th, and you just go, man, something that is not real. But the thoughts turned into emotions that turned into actions that turned into mania. and it can really, really affect you to a point where people are standing around like, how did we do this?

How did we get here?

How did we get here? That's where I was. And I'm not saying that to condemn anybody. I'm saying that because that was me. And I'm like standing there like holding something crazy, like what? How did I get here? You know what I mean? And the moment though in therapy when I got that, And then there was a moment, 10 years post, where I'd been into therapy big, big time.

A couple of years ago.

Yes, literally, literally. And actually 2017. And I was sexually assaulted by my neighbor. Now, he was the head of the Motion Picture Department at William Morris Endeavor. Okay, 2017, I'm at a party. I'm the only black guy there, and me and my half black wife, and everyone else is very Hollywood and superstars and rich white people, okay? And there I am, and I'm sitting there, and this guy comes down, I remember he came down from this area, and he's just looking at me with his tongue out, and he's like, what is happening? Okay? And I'm looking around like, he ain't talking to me, you know, he can't be talking to me or looking at me like that. But he was. And he came over through, and I'm telling you, it's packed, like it's a packed place. And he squeezes through the crowd, and I reckon, and people are like, oh yeah, that's him. 'Cause I had never met him. I had heard about him. His name was Adam Bennett. And he's at my agency, and he represents, listen, he was Eddie Murphy's agent, Adam Sandler's agent. Stallones, all these people that I had worked with previously. So I'm going, okay, this is some guy I'm supposed to meet. So he comes over and I stick my hand out, like, hey man, nice to meet you. He grabs my nuts, like, and I'm like, what? Don't touch me, man. I push the guy off. He jumps back and he starts licking his tongue out, like, ah. and listen, people everywhere. Listen, there are other witnesses.

Right, right.

Okay. I mean, I tell the story, but there are a lot of people who saw it. And my wife is one. She was right there next to me. He comes back at me, grabs me again, I push him back. Now I'm like, oh, I'm gonna kill you. Now you gave me the license. And I was gonna punch a hole through his head. Gosh. But all of a sudden, it hit me. I was like, I don't have to do that. I looked at my wife, and she looked at me, and I remembered our promise. But I also remembered my therapy. I remembered, wow, man, you, this is responsibility. You have an ability to respond differently. You have that now. Because remember, you were out of control before. Anything could make you go off. And I went, I just stood there and I grabbed my wife's hand. I said, let's go. Let's go. Now mind you, I got in the car and I felt like driving the car back through the club, like Terminator. It was gonna, you know, I said, man, I'm gonna go back through the club. Let me go get my gun. This is one thing in the hood, that was the thing everybody does in basketball court. They run out and they go, I'll be right back. And everybody knows, oh, he's coming back with bullets. That was my mind in them, even in the moment, like, no, I can't let him go. I can't. But this is the thing, Louis, I discovered that you can either have success or revenge. But you can't have both. Yeah. Can't. Can't.

Man.

Success is letting it go. Success is moving. And I got in the car, I was, I finally, again, I blacked out, but in a good way, 'cause I ended up in my driveway. My whole time, my wife was like, I'm so proud of you.

Wow.

I'm proud of you. That's big. I'm proud of you. That's big.

What's the thing you're most proud of? in the last couple of years that you either did or didn't do or evolved into?

You know, I would say my wife and I celebrating our 30th anniversary. And she looked at me and we had a huge party, all these people. It was wonderful. It was before the pandemic. And she was like, I love you. You did the work, man. Wow. She said, you, did the work. Hey, man, there's nothing. You gotta understand. I. People can say. I could say I hurt people, but when you hurt the one you love the most, and she's still here, like, you gotta understand, I would come home and she'd be in tears, just sitting. somewhere and crying, and I knew I did it. There was nothing I could really do to come over and she said, no, it's okay. And I had to live in it. And see, this is another thing, because, you know, the temptation is to run. It's too painful. So you just go, man, I'll be better off somewhere else. But it's another thing, and the way I like to call it is, you know, The world has this my bad mentality. Like, my bad, you know, like you can't hit somebody with your car and then drive off and go, my bad, sorry about that. No, what you have to do is you have to stop. You have to wait by the person you hit. And the police are coming, the ambulance is coming, and you have to hold your hand, and you have to get them into the ambulance, you have to get them to the hospital, you have to pay for their Whatever they lost, you have to pay. You have to make amends. It's not enough to just say, oh, I'm sorry, my bad. Yeah. And I did that, and she said, you did the work, man. Wow. I'm fixed. I love you.

That's beautiful, man.

That's gotta feel... That's the thing again, it was hard, but it was worth it. It was worth it.

30 years, man.

That's a... We are 33 now.

33, man.

33 this year.

On a scale of one to 10, currently right now, a self-love scale, let's call it, hypothetical scale. 10 being you have so much inner peace, you love and accept yourself for where you are. You're also a work in progress, but you love and accept yourself. You don't have shame. on a consistent daily basis, that would be a 10. One being you hate yourself and you don't love yourself at all. Where do you see yourself on this self-love scale?

I would say seven.

Seven.

I ain't go all the way there, you know, it's easy to fall back, you know.

What would it take to get it to a eight, nine, or 10?

Oh man, that's shaman level. You know, 'cause it's stuff that's still irritated. Look, I don't know if I'll ever hit 10. Yeah, I really do. I'll be honest. I don't know.

Yeah.

Because you go, whoa, what did I. What was I? Oh, okay, I gotta chill. You know, even now, again, it's a much smaller battle. Yes. Because you realize, okay, but, you know, I have to make declarations, and this is one reason why. And this is why I'm so transparent, because it keeps me. out of seven because you told everybody. You understand? I mean, like, hey man, oh, you missed a piece in love, huh? You know what I mean? Like, all right. And somebody's gonna bust you. Somebody, the universe, the universe, whatever. The universe, the universe, the universe. It's like, and they see that scab and they're gonna flick it and you're like, ah, what? You know, somebody is gonna do that and. and you realize, but that's the position that I want to be in, 'cause it's always self-corrective. You know what I mean? And like I said, my goal is to get to 10. I'll tell you that right now. But I've never dipped below five.

That's good, man.

You know what I mean? That's where we at.

Ana, you mentioned how for so long, your life was about competition. Competition growing up, competition in NFL, competition in the industry afterwards. When did it or has it yet shifted from competition to something else? Because you're so successful. It just feels like everything you do turns into magic, right? You're on TV shows for eight seasons, you're on movies and the host of AGT and multiple agts. Now it's like everything you do is successful. At least that's what it looks like. Is it still this competitive nature that you have or is there a different approach after so long of being in the industry?

Okay, I over this time, over time, I've discovered that competition, now this is, and what's crazy is people said, this is great, this can't be true. I discovered, for me, competition is the opposite of creativity. And what I decided to do was get creative. And you have to understand, competition is about you versus another human being. But creativity is always collaborative.

Gosh, I'm so happy you're saying this.

Always.

I'm so happy you're saying this.

You can't be creative without being collaborative. Just try it. Who's gonna be creative alone? The essence of what being creative is, is you're taking one thing and mixing it with another and creating a brand new thing. Where are you gonna get that other? That's the only thing that's creative. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I mean, on a crazy level, I remember when they had Taco Bell was selling these Taco pizzas. You know what I mean? And you're like, How did you do that? Well, they went to Pizza Hut and copied what they did and brought it to Taco Bell and made something brand new. Listen, creativity works that way. It's a whole thing where you need everybody else. And it's another thing that blew my mind. I discovered that in fact, you need the success of other people for you to be successful.

So true, man.

Listen, I had to Listen, I spent hours like really writing this down, zoning this down, and how this worked. And I was like, man, you go to Fifth Avenue. If one store won, let's say Louis Vuitton, 1 Fifth Avenue, and every store was Louis Vuitton, would anybody go? No. You need Dior, you need all these places so that everybody has a choice. Imagine if it was just one restaurant. And everybody had to go to the same restaurant. It's done. No, you need different restaurants so that your restaurant can be successful.

Absolutely.

I learned, don't try to be the best, be the only. Oh snap, that's it. And I realized.

When did you realize this though? Dude, when was this?

It was during the therapy. It was in the assembly, 'cause I was going, why isn't this not working? Man, my internal success was so far below my external success. And I had to try to rectify it. And so that was, that took a lot of building. But I was like, why am I jealous of other actors? Why am I, I'd see something I went for and the billboards are up and I was auditioning for that and I'm like, he ain't that good. And it would make me sick. And I said, now I had to examine why am I sick? why am I feeling negative toward this person? He didn't do anything to me. I don't know anything about him. Why am I feeling negative toward him? Just because they picked him instead of me. In fact, I said, then I started changing myself. I said, you know what? I said, I wish nothing but good for that person. And wait, I didn't feel it. You understand what I mean? Like, this is where you have to act your way into a feeling because I wasn't feeling it, and I said, no. I said, he deserved that. And I'm gonna go see it. I would go pay. I would buy tickets to movies just so I could get over these feelings of jealousy and envy and competition. And I would enjoy them. And I would go. He was amazing. I got a perfect example. I'm gonna bring it up because he's one of my good friends right now. Dave Batista. Dave Batista is probably one of the best people in the entire.

He seems like a nice guy.

Listen. He seems like a- I love this dude.

He's jacked, man.

He's freaking- I love this man like he's my brother. Oh, he seems- I don't know what to say. It's so wild. Every time we talk, we're like, it's like, man, you are just my kindred. You're my homie. But he may not know this, but I know. I auditioned for his part in Guardians of the Galaxy. Really? Didn't get it. And I remember when he got it. And I remember I was like, oh, okay. You know, the universe is testing me. And I'm gonna say this, 'cause again, The thing is, I gotta be transparent because this is real. And I was like, oh man, oh man. And then I saw the movie. And I said, I didn't have no business in that movie. I said, that's his.

He was great for that part. He was perfect.

And he's great in everything. Wait, he's past that. He's doing so many other things. But I said, here I am. And wait, and if I had let that really affect me, it would have affected a friendship.

Wow.

That now we talk to each other, we talk, we call each other, we text each other. And I said, man, but that feeling could have really damaged something that was really pure and real. And I said, man, this is collaborative. It's not competent. It's not. No competition. And he is one of my best friends in this business.

That's cool.

You understand what I'm saying? And I'm telling you, I'm sure he wouldn't mind it. 'Cause I think he's just a superstar dude.

Now you guys gotta, I wanna see in the next three years, you guys doing a TV show or a movie together?

Yeah, yeah, I tell you something. 'Cause I love him.

You're like, yeah, you're cops together or.

You'Re something and we need actually, we need each other. But again, and look, I know the things that I have, I'm the only one for.

Absolutely.

You understand what I mean? So, and then that's, one other thing is, you get tricked into thinking everything's limited. There's more out there than ever. Abundance.

Abundance is everywhere.

Especially in the last five years for.

Actors, there's a hundred times more opportunities than it was 10 years ago with all the streaming and everyone's buying content and creating its digital.

It's like being in Whole Foods fighting over one apple and everybody's fighting over this one apple. And you'd be like, hey, dude, there's like a pile of apples right here. Y'all know that, right? it's that ridiculous. But once you get in a competitive game, it's it blind. It really all reasoning and logic go out the window. I know it does.

What's the next level of growth for you? Because there's so many things you've overcome in the last three decades, really, in your inter, your relationship with your wife, with your kids, with yourself in your industry. What's the next level? What's the next limiting belief for you to elevate? beyond.

I, it's wild because it just keeps getting more and more internal. You know what I mean? I'll be honest, like the big thing, I mean, growing up, I cared what everyone thought. I mean, I, especially when you're in that world like that, everyone's opinion mattered way too much, you know? And so, Where I'm really progressing to is this thing where I find my tribe, you know, not impressing people that I would probably never really hang with anyway. You know what I mean? That used to be my life. Trying to impress a whole bunch of people that I would never really call friends in the first place. And so now it just really became about finding the people that I connect with. And, you know, what's wild is I got in a lot of trouble even over the pandemic when I made it a declaration that I decided to unite with good people. No matter the race, the creed, the color, the ideology, that I was going to unite with good people. And people got mad over that because a lot of people want to fight. And, but I said at the end, I said, I'm gonna die on this hill. I choose to die on this hill. And it's hard though. And let me say, everything I'm talking about today is tough. It's a level of toughness. The big thing about being tough is people thought, you know, you'd be able to throw punches, but it's really about endurance. It's really about being able to take them, being able to be alone. Being able to stand alone in who you are, knowing that you're good, because a lot of people calling you all kinds of things, especially since I'm in the public eye. Yeah. And just go, that means nothing.

And how do you learn to not care or ruminate on the opinions of others now?

Well, because you have to examine every, this is what I think.

When you've been so conditioned to people please for years, how did you-- It takes time.

It's not overnight. And I would never encourage anybody to just go test it out. You know what I mean? It's something that takes years and years. But you gotta start exercising it. Just ask yourself why you're so offended. Listen, I remember in my neighborhood and where I came up, if anybody called you nigger, The rule is you knock them out. That's the rule. Like, no question, no nothing. You can go on Instagram, TikTok, you can watch people get knocked out for calling somebody a nigger. But one thing I realized, and when I started to examine that rule, I was like, there are no niggers. It's no such thing. So why am I getting offended over something? You calling me something that I'm not? And see, that's a whole different framework.

It's an elevation right there.

You understand what I mean? I was like, you might as well call me a leprechaun. I mean, be honest, 'cause there are, there's no such thing. So, but the problem is, it's in me, if I believed I was one and you hit me, those are the things that hurt men the most. This is why what a woman says about a man will hurt them deeper than a punch in the face. I'd rather you punch me in the face. But if a woman says, you ain't no good, and a guy will be like, well, because that's his insecurity. You tricked his trick, man. You know what I mean? And I realized, wait a minute, I'm doing the best I can. And you know what? And I now I count those things to ignorance. Yeah. I don't have to take them personally. Remember how you mentioned taking things personally? Yes. Hey man, you can go a long way doing that. But I learned, this is not about me. It's bigger than me. And it changed everything.

Whoo man, and if people want to learn all these skills and strategies that you've learned, you've got it in your book, Tough. My Journey to True Power. It's not about reacting in tough ways, but the endurance of emotional toughness, mental toughness. to rise above it. So I want everyone to go get a few copies of this. Give it to your friends. This will be very inspiring. The stories you tell are raw. The lessons you share are powerful. So make sure you guys get a few copies. This is a question I asked everyone at the end. I asked you this before, but I'm not gonna share what you shared last time. It's called Three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth, many years away from now, and you get to accomplish everything you wanna accomplish. live the life you want to live. And you get to live as old as you want to live, but eventually you gotta turn the lights off and leave this world. And for whatever reason, everything you've created has to go away, right? The message you've shared, this podcast, the books, movies, no one has access to your message anymore. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we would have to remember your Legacy for the first.

One is you can't love someone and control them at the same time. That's the first one.

That is powerful.

The second one, I would say, and I'm going to say this, intelligent decision making sometimes requires that you forget what you've lost and reevaluate the situation as it exists. today. Now, that may seem long, but what it is is you literally have to, every day, reevaluate everything you think you love. Like, to be intelligent, you have to forget what pained you. Forget that you have to actually let go of all that grief and all that get back and all that revenge. and reevaluate the situation. Then you can make a real, true, intelligent decision. And the third thing is assembly required. Straight up. You've got to assemble yourself. Yourself, not leave it to somebody else to do it. It's your job.

Yeah, those are powerful. I want to acknowledge you, Terri, for constantly evolving as an incredible man in this world. It takes a lot. I mean, I can only imagine the amount of weight and pressure that you've had to carry for so long with these feelings and anger and rage while having a public persona and kind of having two different personalities, I guess, like you said, or two different images. And for you to want to dive in and do the work and unlearn and rebuild and assemble a healthy, whole human being as opposed to a tough from the old sense of what toughness was and elevate to a new toughness. I'm really inspired by a man and I'm grateful for your example in the world. I'm grateful for our friendship even though I haven't seen you in a couple of years, but hopefully I'll see you more in the future. It's really inspiring. Again, I want people to get the book, Tough. The final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

Wow. A servant to all. The person who serves the most is the greatest among everybody. I mean, my goal is to serve, serve, serve. I serve my family. It's my job to put me to make sure my wife gets what she wants. My kids get what they want, not what I want for them. But what do you want? Let me help you. and that's my friends, my people. If I can help you in any way, get what you want, it makes you great. It's amazing.

Mmm, Terry, my man. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, brother.

Thank you.

Let me know some of your biggest takeaways in the comments below and make sure to share this with someone you think needs to hear it. And stick around for more inspiring content coming up right now.

Another thing I have to say, I was very successful. I was very successful.

You were rising.

Oh my God. Dude, I had already been through the NFL, already done all these movies and TV shows and this kind of thing. Commercials, yeah. Commercials. And this is one thing I tell people all the time, is that success is the warmest place to hide. It's so warm in here. Because first of all, remember, the image is the most important thing. So if the image is good, people are automatically like, He's good. He's got a wife, he's got kids, he's got this, he's got that. Oh my God, he looks great. But inside, I knew what I was doing. I knew that my crap hadn't been exposed. And she knew. So finally, she came to me that night, and I was at the Mercer Hotel right there in SoHo. Never forget it, man. In fact, I've never stayed in the Mercer Hotel. Simply because it was just that reminders. It's such a dark place. I actually have to redeem that place. You know what I mean? Beauty for Ash. Yeah, you know what I mean, right? And redeem it. But what's so crazy is that she said, Terry, this blew me away. It cracked my egg, man. She said, what is it I don't know about you, Terry Crews? Because we have been arguing all night. And those words, I remember just hanging up. And then I laid there in the bed and I was like, you know what? Keep the lie. Keep the lie. Don't tell her. And something told me, man, I ain't gonna tell you. I don't even have to tell you what it was like. The universe, people could call it was God, it was Jesus, it was whatever runs The world said to me, Terry Crews, if you don't tell her, I'm going to leave. Wow. Now, I was just like, wait a minute. Like, I've been, it was almost like, he was like, I've been dealing with you forever, giving you a shot to tell your truth, to really just be honest. You know what? I'm done with you. and I felt so alone. It was, man, Lewis, I can't even describe. It was, again, it was a snowstorm going on. It was like everything was dark, dark, dark, and I'll never felt that darkness, anything like that ever again. It was the only thing I could compare it to was 10 years earlier when I was in Vancouver. Wow. It was like the whole thing came back full circle. Circle. I mean, years later, right? I called her up, we talk again, and I told her, Lewis, I'll never forget the gasp on the other end of the line. Wow. I was like, oh no. She said, oh my God. She said, Terry, don't come home. You don't have a home to come to.

Holy cow.

My life was over.

Wow.

My life was over. That right there, I was like, and then I kind of, and this is a strange thing, it was, you know what I was like? I felt relief. I said, Good.

You got it off your chest.

You know what? Go ahead and leave then. Right. Then you probably weren't with me in the beginning. Again, it's still I didn't want to give it up. I was like, you know, I'll just buy me another girl and now I'll just start over. 'Cause I'm successful. I'm successful. I already have it. See, this is the thing, Louis. Hollywood doesn't care if you lose your family. No. In fact, they're like, look, now we can book you for more movies. Right.

You have more time.

Yeah, now you have way more time. Now you're all good. And I was like, okay, you know, I'm good. Fine. and then all of a sudden, again, that voice was like, okay, Terry, but it's still you. It's still your problem. You now have no family. All you have is an image that's fake.

And some success and some money and. Yeah, I said, oh, my God.

And he said, Terry, you. have to hold yourself accountable. And I was like, it sunk in on me that I knew. I said, oh my God. And then I called a friend, because it was dark and I was like, man, my wife left me and she's done with me and the whole thing. He said, Terry, look, I cannot guarantee you or promise you that your wife will ever come back. But you have a problem. and you have to get better for you. And that's it. He said, I can't make any promises. Because I was like, I was like, you know, look, I got, I told her and everything, so now I'm supposed to get everything back, right? No. And so I was like, I see it. I see it. And it was like a cracked egg. It was like this whole life. Like, one thing I realized is that at certain times in a man's life, He's either a fool, he's a victim, or he's a king. And when you're a fool, you're like, you goof it all up. Ah, well, you know, but you think there are no consequences for your actions, but there are always consequences for every act you do, everything, good or bad. But then, when you mess your whole life up, being a fool, you become a victim. Now, oh my God, look, You know why I did that? 'Cause I was black. You know why? 'Cause I grew up in all that religion. And my father was an alcoholic. You know he beat my mom, you know that, right? Or look at the situation. I'm from Flint, Michigan, man. It's hard for a black man in this society and this way we did it. I had, let me tell you, the table is always full of excuses because they're valid. There's a lot of people against you. And you can say, oh my God, this table is full. It's like, man, this is the reason why I'm like this. And this is, this, this, this. And man, you never run out.

And you always stay down.

Always. But the king stage is when you realize, wait a minute, this is your table. Wait a minute, this is your room. You have to accept whatever you are letting in to your life. Good or bad. As a king, you can tell people, get out of your court. As a king, you don't have to accept any of those excuses. As a king, you have to know that you are responsible for your life, good and bad. You did that. So as a king, if something's not right, it's your responsibility to change it. Dude, it was like I had to go to rehab. I went to rehab. It was this place called Psychological Counseling Services. It was in Arizona. I mean, yeah, in Arizona, in Phoenix. And man- How long did you go for? Oh man. Well, you go for a full week. It's like an intensive. Yeah. Where you don't do anything. You're there for like 16 hours a day. And- This is 2010? This was, yeah, it was 2010. So, and my wife told me she thought I would never ever do anything like that. Because again, I was not, listen, we had been going to like therapy, but when you're not honest, it doesn't work. You know what I mean? You're just telling the game and whatever. Dude, I went in there and I was like, this ain't me. This ain't me in like the first couple hours. I'm like, come on, this is crazy. Then all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, this is me. Wow. This is me. This is the problem. This is the issue. I was in tears. I was broke. I was like, I was toxic. When you finally could turn the thing around and see yourself as ugly as you were, I was just so, so guilty. Let me tell you, it wasn't shame. It was guilt. There's a big difference.

What's the difference?

Shame says you are bad. Guilt says you did something wrong. The problem is, I was feeling shame since I was a kid. Yeah. As you, it's you, it's you, and this is the thing, when you are a shamed person, and when you try to motivate people through shame, what you're doing is constantly telling them, You are a bad person. You are like this. You are wrong. You are messed up. So you know what happens is no matter where you go, you go back to I am messed up. But when you realize, wait a minute, wait a minute, it's not that I messed up, it's that I made a messed up choice. That changed the framework for me. And I was like, and it didn't excuse anything. Now, mind you, it did not. you are. I had to say it. And the thing is, it's like courtroom, like a court. For you to actually be guilty, you have to say it. Think about it. There's nobody. If you never admit guilt, it will never be presented. You have to say, I am guilty. Wow. I did the crime, and it allows everyone to see you as you truly are, and I. I went through the process of guilt, of making sure I was guilty. I knew what I said, I put my wife through this, I put my family through this, I did this, I did this. Now let me correct it. But see, shame you can't correct. Shame is incorrigible. You can't, there's nothing, what happens is shame you just cover it. Shame is something you just put, you know, let's put some leaves over here. Put leaves over the body. You know what I mean? It's like there's no way you can really, you know, shame is one of those things where you just have to, like, color it. Image covers shame. But when you are dealing with guilt now, you've been proven guilty. Now there's punishments. You have to make amends. You have to do, right? You have to be accountable. There's all kinds of things, man. You have to come back. You have to forgive people who did things to you. You have to ask forgiveness for what you did to other people. Let me tell you, and I have to say this, the forgiveness that my wife showed me was what I say a car carrying lesson for any person ever. And I understand why people get divorced. I do. First of all, I should be. But this woman, this is the thing, this is the intimacy that I always, always wanted, because she saw me for who I was, for real. And she said, Terry, I love you anyway. Wow. Man. Wow. That's all you want? That's all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was to be seen for who I was. And I was like, you love me? I thought it was real. I thought she wouldn't come back. But she did. She said, but Terry, I love you. Man, that blew me away. Yeah. Because I was living this man life and here I am, you see me as nothing. I'm like, I'm feel about myself, like I feel like I'm worth dirt. And she was like, bro, I love you. And man, that changed everything. It was like the thing that I needed I was running from the whole time. Louis? I was running from it the whole time. and I vowed, I said after that, I said, my God, my God, I can correct this. This is fixable. This is fixable. This is not something, this is what I learned through counseling and I continue to this day, I mean, it's been 10 years of constant, constant work, constant just, hey man, I can fix this. Wait a minute. this is why when I talk about toxic masculinity, I'm talking about me. I'm not in the game to be like, look at you guys. Let me tell you about you and what you've been doing. Hold up, I'm talking about me. First of all, when people clown me about, oh man, oh yeah, you got molested. I would have been the guy who did that stuff. I would have been the guy like, man, you're too big to get, man. You just need to smack somebody and get out of here. I would have been that person. So I'm never ever pointing the fingers at another man as if you need to get it together, brother. I'm not spreading shit, but I am saying we need to say we're guilty. Wow. We need to say what it is we did wrong. And this is the only way. The only way I can really because right now in our society today, we have a big thing about apologies, you know? Yeah. Hey, I said, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry. So now you gotta forgive me. And let's keep going. The only way I can really, really kind of put this thing down is when it's like driving drunk. You hit somebody in a car, you get out of the car. Hey, man, sorry. Yeah. And then you get back in the car and drive away. First of all, that is today's version of an apology. But what we're talking about, accountability is totally different. Accountability is you stay there with that person you hit. Accountability is the police come, you've been driving drunk, you get arrested. Accountability, you lost your license. Accountability, you're paying fines and you're paying for the person you hit and you are paying for their recovery.

Yeah, you might be in jail for some time.

You might listen, you'll be cleaning up on the side of the freeway for about six months. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter what status you are, that's accountability. You pay the price. And accountability says, it says now, we can get back to even here. Now it's about men's balance. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's what I have dedicated my life to doing. Yeah. My life, it's funny because when I look at even the massage parlor that I went to, I learned later on I joined, I became an ambassador for the Polaris Project, which deals with sex trafficking. And it talked about how many of the women that are involved in that whole thing are not free. They're not free. They were there, they're basically indentured servants. And they're basically trying to pay off debts to get out from some pimp or get out from under someone who's got them. And I played that whole thing out of my head because I said, I did that. I gotta correct this. And so I became an ambassador for Polaris Project because to stop human slavery today, you know, the fact that at every opportunity that I can see, I'm really trying to tell my story in order to just bring light to, man, you know, we've been hypnotized as men. We've been hypnotized, man. This masculinity thing, it's to a point where, you know, I could understand the Taliban. Right. You know what I mean? Like, wait a minute, I knew Talib. You know, in African-American culture, we have a black Talib. It's like, if you don't do black the right way, you're out. Really? If you are not this kind of black man, you are instantly, this is a lot of things white people don't know, but there is a sector that is so pro-black Talib, I call them the Ankh-Rite, which is the Ankh symbol, the Egyptian thing, that they actually line up with white races.

Oh, my gosh.

And they go attack black people. I'm talking about black people. And it blows your mind. This is Talladega. I was like, this is. But it's as toxic as it comes. And I remember being, like, having attitudes and things. I remember my wife would tell me stuff. We have arguments. I was like, you know, that girl, she's got to watch what she's wearing. She said, Terry, it doesn't matter what she's wearing. Nobody should be able to touch her without her permission. I was like, yeah, but she's wearing it. It doesn't matter. Because I was in a framework and a mindset where you're like, man, let me tell you, when you come out, you start, and it's wild because it's almost like falling off a cliff. You know, you fall and you just hit the ledge. You think you're on the bottom, but you're hitting the ledge. It's like things are revealed and things are like, man, look, look, look. And then in 2017, my wife and I went to this party. And this agent who was the head of William Morris Endeavor, his name was Adam Bennett, literally represented Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, all the super big stars, Adam Sandler. It was actually Sandler's party. And this guy comes over to me, I mean, he's licking his tongue out, doing all this crazy stuff. I've got my wife's hand. Let me tell you something. Once you out of that, you know what toxic masculinity looks like. You know. And I have to say, the term toxic masculinity has been overused. People have been, ah, toxic, you know what it is? It's abuse of power. Quite simply, it's an abuse of power. Anywhere you see this kind of stuff where you see and abuse of power. We're talking about these kind of problems. This guy came over to me, man, and he's looking at his tongue. I don't. Now, I know drunk and I know drugs. I grew up in Flint, Michigan. I know the crack epidemic. I grew up with it. I know people who are high as hell. He was high. Yeah. On something. I I I cannot. I don't know what it was. He was out of his mind. Eyes dilated, going crazy. And I'm going, what is wrong with this? this dude.

And you're with your wife.

I'm with my wife. He comes over to me, he gropes me in my gym. I mean, not even, he just grabs a handful. I'm like, yeah, hey man, get back. What are you doing? Then he's laughing and he comes back again. I'm like, dude, dope. And I grab his hands, I restrain him, I push him back. I mean, he literally falls into other people. And I can't believe what I'm, what I'm, I mean, this is my agency. These are people I pay millions of dollars to. So I go, okay, okay. Now my wife has seen me before in my toxic days.

Get aggressive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's seen football days. Yeah, in the football days. She's seen me throw people over her head. Wow. Literally. Wow. She's seen people get beat down in the street. And she was like years earlier. You know, this was during the therapy times and during our comeback time. She said, Terri, you cannot let anyone pull you into any sort of altercation because you're gonna lose everything. Wow. She would always tell me, always like, you- can't react. You can't respond.

You can't react. Because this was also part of my therapy.

Because I had anger. I had big anger. I wanted to fight. I said, man, that's how I got in the NFL. Seven years in the NFL was a fight. That's all you do. Look, man, you got two good parents. You probably ain't gonna make it in life.

No.

I'm just trying to tell you, you get that kind of peaceful life. Yeah, you're too soft. You're too comfortable. You play on pain, dude. You play on my daddy beat my mom. I'm gonna beat your ass just like that. Wow. I'm gonna tell you, man, I put my head in. My holy skill was my ability to take tremendous amounts of pain. That was the deal. 'Cause I was angry. It's like jail anger. You know what I mean? I'm telling you, I do NFL players. You put us in any prison, we'll run it. I'm just telling you, 'cause I could go to prison now and I know I could be fine. Because that pain was something that you like, man, don't touch me. You enjoy the fight. So you wanna fight? You understand what I mean? Yeah, you look for it. You're like, you bring it. And she was like, Now you're different. We have to work this. I said, you,'re right. And I had that question, why would I want to just snap on somebody? Why would I love to just put somebody's face in the pavement? Why can't I walk away? Let me tell you, man, that was the biggest test I ever had, ever. Because I grabbed her hand, because I was gonna kill this dude, Lewis. Dude, I'm trying to. Listen, what people don't even even fathom, fathom, is the aftermath of these kind of actions.

I know.

Because imagine even if I would have just pow! And he fell and died.

Your career's over.

Your life's over. Wait, life's over. Wait, he may not even have been there to tell the story. Everybody was like, Jerry Cruz just killed a man. Well, what was he high? I don't know. No, he bumped into Cherry, he got mad. I wouldn't have been able to say, well, he did that. They'd be like, yeah, right, right. Dude, I got in that car, I got my hands on the steering wheel. I was gonna drive back in. I mean, I literally was gonna drive like, I, it was, took everything I had to drive away.

I go back and, yeah.

She said, my wife was like, I'm.

So proud of you.

Wow. I'm proud of you, Terry. I'm proud of you. I was like, now, next day, go right to the agency. I'm like, hey man, what are y'all gonna do about this? This is crazy. Guy calls me up, I'm sorry I was drunk. Instantly I knew he was lying. Because when you tell me you're drunk, I know you're lying. So now you're not dealing with this thing, now you're not willing to say you're guilty. You just got back in the car.

You're making an excuse.

I'm on the ground. You got back in the car. You drove off. You just made an excuse. And he was like, sorry about that. So I go up, I talk to my agent, I said, dude, you gotta do something. We're gonna handle this. We're gonna handle this at the highest levels. We're gonna do whatever it takes, Terry, you watch. I got zero. I waited, waited, waited. It was like eight months later, and I'm going, Nobody's doing nothing. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Babe, nobody's making a move. I said, this is ridiculous. And all of a sudden, the Weinstein story breaks. And these guys, all over the internet, are going in on these girls about, they kept a story. You know, now why are you telling now? Why are you doing this now? Why are you doing that now? I just got so angry I couldn't believe it. Because I said, this happened to me. I was molested. And I didn't go public. You know what I mean? I didn't make a big deal. I'm waiting for them to make it right. I didn't say William Morris did this right off. And first of all, if I'd have made a police report back then, I would have been laughed out of the station. right. They'd have been like, what?

Who cares?

Yeah. What? They grab assing, man. Because, first of all, you're talking about a complicit system. I mean, imagine the women that come through. It's like, oh, yeah, whatever. Look what she was wearing, man. Right? Hey, I couldn't resist. And, dude, I would have been laughed. There's nothing I could say. But when that hit. When that happened, I backed those women up right away. through 16 tweets. My wife didn't know, publicist didn't know, the toll, nobody knew. I was on the set of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I did those tweets and I knew, I was like, oh my God. If I had remained silent, I would have felt like a fraud. I said, those women were being sent out in the fire, like they were just out there and these guys were just lambasting them. and I said, I gotta support you. I have to support you. Their courage gave me my courage. Yeah. And because I know what it is. I know what this is, man. And I said, man. And. And they were gaslighting me, dude. So finally, when I did this tweets, and I remember, I didn't name a name. Did not say a name at all. Yeah, yeah. They actually calls me. Hey, Terry. You all right? We saw your tweets and the whole thing. I said, so why are you calling me? And he said, well, we didn't know, Terry. We didn't know. This was one of the higher ups. He's like, We didn't know. I said, well, why are you calling me? Because I didn't name anybody in those tweets. Could have been anybody. You knew. So stop playing this fucking game. with me. I mean, literally, that's for real. And I was like, dude, are you serious? The great Arie Emanuel, president of William Morris, the man. He's like, I am going to grant you a meeting with me. That's what he said.

Grant you a meeting?

I'm going to grant you a meeting with me. He said, would you like it to be at my home or we could meet at the Four Seasons? I was like, you know, I'm not going to your house. Let's meet at the hotel. So he sits there, he comes in, he's like talking about, oh man, I juice, do you juice? I'm going, we really gonna talk about juice right now? Okay, I said, look, I pulled out a letter. I pulled out a letter he wrote that said, Mel Gibson should be blacklisted from Hollywood. Why? Because of anti-Semitic remarks. He should never work again. What I did, I took that same letter, I crossed out Mel Gibson, Put Adam Bennett, his agent, cross out anti-Semitic remarks and I put sexual assault. And I said, Read that. Now you know what you have to do. He said, It's different. So what's different about it? He said, well, you know, I said, first of all, hey look, anti-Semitic remarks as reprehensible as they may be, are not illegal. Sexual assault is a crime punishable by law. What he did to me, you go to jail for. He was like, look, okay, what we're gonna do, he's gonna lose his title and we're gonna suspend him for 30 days. Is that good enough for you? I said, wait a minute, why are you asking me what's good enough for me? I said, first of all, I said, it's not my job to tell you how to police your people. I said, dude, I said, he has to go. You cannot do this to a client and go back to work. I said, I am accepting nothing less than his dismissal, Mr. Ari Emanuel. He said, do what you got to do, Terry. Wow. And that started our year saga of courtrooms. And then they went public and said that I basically tried to take advantage of the MeToo movement and piggyback on this movement that real women had been really molested. And they protected him. They stood by him. They were like, he did nothing wrong. We went into all this hoopla and finally it all hit the fan because more people started coming forward. More people and they just kept, they got, oh we just found this house and you knew this shit from the beginning. You just wanted to play me out and listen, I have big time stars, big time people came to me and they said Terry, they told me not to work with you. for you. Wow. Terri, they told me not to do. They were planting wrong stuff. They had stories planted about me and prostitutes and Monaco and the whole thing ready to go to all the press. And that was my second honeymoon. And I was like, no, no. So what I did, I just went in, I put all their stuff and put it out myself. And I went vocal, I went public. I went see, because this kind of thing, you got to call out a heckler. you understand what I mean? Toxic masculinity. When these guys get mean, these people who want to abuse, they pray for your silence. Silence is violence, man. They pray you never tell. But what I did, I went on a tour. I went on Dr. Phil, I was on Megan Kelly, I was on every talk show, everywhere, naming names. And they were like, geez. To the point where, to a point where they couldn't, they couldn't stand it. I mean, their own clients had to be like, what's going on here, man? Right. And then he resigned. He gave me my money back because I never wanted any money. It was, I didn't want to die. He had to go. I accepted that. They actually were talking about, well, what does he want? What does he want? You know, they sent lawyers to do that. I walked out. I was like, I'm not playing this game. I said, what do you want? I want them gone. Well, that's not gonna happen. I said, well then, you're not gonna get it. It ain't gonna happen. Yeah. So he agreed to leave. And there we go. And they gave me my money back. But at the same time, I had to think, oh, my God, I spent 400, 000 of my own money. What is a young girl gonna do?

Who doesn't have the funds, resources, what.

Young girl wants to be in Hollywood, get off the bus? She's trying to do it. She gets molested. She gets raped by her agent nonetheless. What's she gonna do?

Not much.

Nothing. And I said, damn it, this has gotta stop. I'm not having, this is a thing where we have to, as men, it's our job. And this is how, this is, I understand my boundaries, Louis. I'm not here to talk about the white man. I'm not. I'm not here to be like, what about this guy? I'm talking about me. Listen, black men need to hold other black men accountable. Men need to hold other men accountable. Americans need to hold other Americans accountable. See, you see how that boundary keeps working? It might grow, it might, people were like, well, what about I, because I talk about my community and they'll say, they'll say, well, what about Catholics? I'm not Catholic, right? I got nothing to say about that. But Catholics need to hold other Catholics accountable. You understand? I mean, what's happened is it's the people you're next to. It's your community. You know what I mean? Hey, man, if you live in Greenwich, Connecticut, you have to hold other Greenwich, Connecticut citizens accountable. It does. Listen. And now this is what they... What about toxic femininity? And I heard that all the time. And I'm like, Hey man, I'll leave that so some woman can have her own conference on that. But I can't speak for them.

I'm curious about just the way you... What do you think about forgiveness through toxic masculinity? When someone has done something to you that you feel is wrong and is wrong, illegal or whether it's illegal or not illegal, you feel is wrong.

Yes.

Just in the way your wife forgave you because you took certain, you took accountability, you took certain actions. Maybe you're maybe not, she wouldn't have forgiven you, but she did and you're here now together. What's your view on forgiving toxic men or toxic actions that men have taken in the past? but are working to improve. And I don't know anything about the agent and what he's doing right now, but how do you, in your own heart, feel about forgiveness when people have done something wrong to you?

First of all, forgiveness is a requirement. I remember when Donald Sterling did all his thing, I went on a press tour. I was doing a press tour for Blended and the whole Donald Sterling thing was going on. and I said, we need to forgive Donald Sterling. You can look it up on YouTube right now. And Black people were like, hell no, blah blah blah. But I said, listen, listen. The big, big thing about forgiveness is that it's not for him, or them. It's for you. It's for you. Now, forgiveness and accountability go hand in hand. See, what people think is forgiveness means now I'm free. No, it doesn't. In fact, holding you accountable is a part of forgiveness. I forgive you, I let you go, I'm filing this lawsuit. You understand what I mean? That's as far as forgiveness goes. I forgive you, meaning, meaning. Hey man, you know what? I'm not gonna let anything you do affect me in a negative way. You understand what I mean? In fact, I'm going to let it propel me to do more courageous acts to help other people. And I had to forgive my father, man. My youngest memory is my father hitting my mother in the face and knocking her out. Okay? I had to forgive him. But the thing is, forgiveness is great, but he expected, okay, so now everything's good. I'm like, no, no, you can't come in my house and ruin my house. I mean, I actually forgave him and then blocked his number. Do you see what I'm saying? Sure. See, but that's where we're getting it mixed up. Because what happens is when a smooth, toxic guy knows how to manipulate that. Come on, baby, you forgave me, right? Let me back in. It's like, you've already crossed that line. Now forgiveness is like, you know what? I forgive you. Go your way. Goodbye. That's the best kind of forgiveness ever, man.

Yeah. Unless maybe, you know, would you ever bring someone back in your life if they showed accountability for a while and you felt like it was sincere and true? I've already- Again, just like what your wife has done where you took the actions, you were sincere, you were- Let.

Me, I have to say this, it is wild 'cause I have a really good friend who I can say betrayed me. And he literally worked his way back. And now we're back again.

Really?

I'm telling you, it's so amazing. My wife will tell you, we went through the whole thing, straight betrayal. And I was like, what? And he was really, really apologetic, really sorry. and he was really accountable. And let me tell you, now he's right back. In fact, because of this, because of what we went through, you trust him even more. Right, right. You see what I mean? We're closer than ever. And we talk about this stuff. And before it was an image and things he was covering, and now there's nothing there. Now we're closer. We're actually intimate, you know what I mean? Let me tell you, my wife and I, way closer than we were before. And when I mean, man, I can look in her eyes, she looks at mine, and we go, oh, listen, I would say if there's a way to not go through what we went through.

That'S the best way.

Do it. You know what I mean? Do it. I would never, ever recommend that. 'Cause let me tell you, it was hell. It was hell. Yeah. To come back. I mean, there were times I would come home and she'd be in the kitchen just crying, just standing there. And I knew, you know, there's nothing worse than knowing you did that. And I didn't even, I wouldn't even have to ask. I would just come over, give her a hug. If she wanted one, I would say, can I hug you? We just hugged. And it's about empathy, man. And this is again with this apology thing, you know, people feel like, well, I said it once and I don't have to apologize again. But that's saying you'll never be wrong. You always have to be open. And forgiveness is necessary. Forgive, forgive, forgive. I have to forgive in the morning and you forgive at night.

How did you learn to forgive yourself? for 20 plus years or 30 years or whatever it is of doing things that you felt like you betrayed yourself for and other people.

That came from doing a lot of reading, Brene Brown. I mean her dealings with Shane.

She's amazing.

Dude, it literally told me, wait a minute man, you are not evil. You see what I mean? Because that's the way you forgive yourself. Yeah, because you can't forgive yourself as long as you think you're evil. You know what I mean? You can't. It's impossible. I am an evil person. There's no forgiveness. But when you realize, no, I did something wrong. I did bad things. I don't do them anymore. Now you can forgive yourself. Now you can start to I don't do that anymore. I don't watch porn anymore. I don't do these things anymore. In fact, I'm working against these things. In fact, I am correcting these things. In fact, because of my vulnerability and because of my transparency, my God, it's like I'm having a therapy session right now as we talk. It makes me, it reminds me, it was like, Hey, man, you're making right moves now. You know what I mean? You're doing the right thing now. And it's so funny 'cause you can relate it to almost like food. You know, people eat emotionally. You know what I mean? You eat when you feel bad. You might not be hungry, you might not be there, but you go, oh, and then all of a sudden, you know, the bigger you get, the worse you feel, and you just say, this is who I am. And then all of a sudden, you are in an unhealthy state and you just decide this is me, this is the way I am. And it's like no, it's not. No, it's not because there is an ideal weight. You know what I mean? I don't I'm never fat shamed or anything. I don't believe in it. But everyone should have an ideal weight. There's an ideal weight for you that's healthy. And if you don't know it, you probably have a problem, you know what I mean? And that's the this is the way I'm engaging my thing, you know? And I look at this thing as, hey, man, when you look at your own life, and it's constant introspection, constant correction, constant, like, do it right. Do it right. Wait a minute. Why do you feel this way? I've been so mindful lately because there are times when I'm sitting around and I'm like, why am I irritated? Why am I irritated by something? And then I realized there was something said or something I feel before I go into any interview, I have to check my own heart. There's times I might be mad at my wife and I take it out on somebody in the interview. You know what I mean? And you go, Whoa, why did I say... Man, dude, you have no idea how deep you go. That's the deal. People are like, Ah, no, I don't know, no, no. Listen, and this is another thing I know, the knowledge that I am capable of unspeakable evil. means I can counteract it. But when you just think, no, man, I would never do something like that. Don't ever say anything like that. I would never, because the whole country of Germany thought we would never do that. Hey man, there was a time when I was a kid, we were riding the back of flatbed trucks on the freeway at 70 miles an hour and wave at the cops and the cops wave back. Baby, hey! Until kids started dying on the freeway. Maybe we should buckle up. There was a time when everybody just accepted, like, you can drive in the back of a flatbed truck on the freeway. Do that, but you can't. And those things just, we think we know, but I think we're just right now on the cusp of realizing who we are. I mean, look at any 80s comedy. You're like, it's cringe-worthy, dude. It hurts. You laughed back in the day. I laughed. It was funny that we were all like, ha ha ha.

And you laugh.

You look at it now like, oh my God.

Yeah. I can't believe I laughed at that.

Yeah.

I want to respect your time because I know you got to leave. I know. I want to talk.

I love your stories and I have.

Like so many questions that I haven't even gotten.

I know, I'm just letting them go.

Next year, we're gonna come back on. Yeah, we got more to do. I want to ask you a few final questions, and I'm gonna ask you to keep them brief so I can respect your time. You're good. I will listen to you for hours.

I know, I know.

I wish this was two hours, but you got another interview.

Believe me, I know, I know.

One question is, what is it about your wife you're most grateful for?

Oh, we gotta be, oof, gotta be brief with this one.

You've gone for an hour on this.

Yeah. You know what? I guess the thing I'm most grateful for is her friendship. It's a friendship. Even if we would have been divorced, she still would have been my friend. Like, she still cared. She's still. This. There's nothing like having a person on Earth that wants to see you win in every way.

That's amazing.

Like, come here, Terry. Come here, come here. Let me get that out your eye. Let me get in there. Okay, -huh, -huh. You look great.

Checking your jacket.

Yeah, you see what I mean? You see? She's like, no, straight in the back. This is why you don't have eyes in the back of your head, 'cause you need somebody to watch you and to check you and to make sure you're right, man. She's my friend, dude. Like, that is the ultimate.

That's cool. That's cool. This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. You've got a lot of truth. And imagine it's your last day on earth many years from now. You get to pick the day, you get to pick the year, but at one point you gotta go. Let's just say hypothetical. And you've done everything you want to do. You've achieved every dream. You've had the most incredible marriage, great kids, everything you want to accomplish, it's happened. impact you want to make in the world, it's happened. The man you want to become, you've become it.

-Whoo, that's a great day.

-It'S happening. -But for whatever reason, all your work and your interviews and your content and your, you know, your movies, you got to take them all with you. So, no one has access to them anymore. They just have memories of you. And you get to leave, you get to a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you know to be true about all your experiences in life, all your lessons, the challenges, the love. And this is what the world would remember you by, these three truths. What would you say are your three lessons or three truths?

Number one is accountability. I would like to know that I taught, I gave people an example of what being accountable looks like. That's a value that is extremely important to me. The other truth is love. I mean, love, I say this before, and I'll say it again, it's impossible to love someone and control them at the same time. Most of these bad things we're talking about are attempts for people in power to control other people. So that's where every abuse occurs, because you're trying to control what people think. I was trying to control my wife by not telling her the truth. But love gives you all the options, and then you get to pick. And if my wife loves me, like if I kept her in a cage in the basement, that's control. That's not love. But when she can come and go freely and she comes home because she wants to be with me, that's love. Let's see, and the third thing, I would say creativity. Creativity. You can do it all. My thing is, I never saw, once I cracked that egg on the inside of me, like the image and who I was became one person, I could do anything. Wow. There was no rules. Go, host, act, create a furniture line, paint. Do whatever, there's no rules, there's nobody to tell you, Hey man, that's not what a man does. No, no, no. Creativity works like do whatever you want, whatever your vision sees. In fact, as far as you can take it. You know what I mean? Pablo Picasso said, you know, whatever you can imagine is real. That kind of creativity, man. That's the, to me, those three things, man, they can say, Man, Terry did that. that's what I want. When you see all the stuff that he went for and he tried. This is a kid from Flint, Michigan, man. I never, never was supposed to get this. People are still shocked that I'm here. Yeah, I shocked myself. But it's through creativity.

Yeah, man, those are powerful truths. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Terry, for your incredible heart. You know, I think a lot of people see you as this big strong guy and you're probably the most attractive man I've met, but you're physically still.

-Exactly.

-Your physical strength is impressive, but your heart strength is really what's inspiring to me. I think to so many people that you're willing to continue to use your platform for a place of service and impact. I think that's for me a true measure of a man is someone who's in service and I honor and recognize that in you and acknowledge you for all you do to be accountable for yourself. You know, I know we've talked before, I've made tons of mistakes in my life and I'm not perfect and I'm constantly owning up to that accountability personally and for you to lead the way, it's really inspiring for me and so many men and women in the world. So I acknowledge you, my man. I hope we get to do more interviews in the future. -Oh, yeah.

-I hope we get to dive in because we didn't even talk about your art, your creativity.

-Yeah, I got a whole... I got a whole deal on that. -There's one of the best artists I've ever met. But right now, you can get the book Manhood. Make sure you guys go pick this up. Get it for yourself. Get it for a man in your life. And for women, if you're living with.

A man, how to understand men better. This is a great book. Check this out. You're on Brooklyn 9-9 is it out right now. You're filming right now and it's out. Filming now and it's out and I'm hosting America's Got Talent.

America's Got Talent is huge, man. Congrats on that.

I've been watching your stories and everything. It looks so inspiring. It is. It's so great, man.

I was made for that show, dude. You are the perfect host. You're freaking like it's unbelievable. What else?

How else can we support you right now? We can follow you on Instagram. Yes, just @terrycrews, Instagram @ Terry Crews on Twitter, Facebook, Terry Crews. And I'm just always doing stuff. Oh, I have a children's book coming out that I illustrated. Is it coming out? It's literally coming out next month. We are getting the whole thing together. It's self-published. It's called Come Find Me. And it's an augmented reality book where it's a first-time reader. It's in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. And you open it up, you have an app, You can put the phone or your iPad on the pictures and the characters pop right out of the book. Wow. We are going all out.

Come find me.

Where can we come find me?

We pre-ordered that on Amazon.

Actually, it's comefindmebook.com.

Okay.

And it's literally coming out next month. So, we're lining it all up, man. It's my first children's book. Let me tell you, this is the thing. What broke my heart more than anything? was when Bill Cosby went down. I grew up on Little Bill, Thad Albert, the whole thing. And I said, man, now that wiped out the whole legacy. I knew something had to replace that. And I created this book. And it's two characters, Marcus and Anthony, two little young African-American boys who are based on real people. I co-wrote it with my friend, Ken Harvey. who was a pro football player and his kids are all grown. They have master's degrees, the whole thing and they're wonderful kids but they were based on them as they were little kids.

That's cool man. Come find me, we'll link it up or promote it out. 30 seconds or less, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is vulnerability because vulnerability, you have I have no courage without vulnerability. And there's no way you can be great until you can hear it and be vulnerable. So that's my definition. So many of us are trying to figure out how can I become the best version of myself, but we can't become the best version of ourselves because.

We'Re still mourning our former self.

We're still mourning our failures from our past. We're still mourning our defeats from our past. We're still mourning our scars from our yester years. I'm done mourning my scars.