“No one wants to work with you”: Terry Crews Shared His Brendan Fraser Moment After Being Assaulted by Hollywood Executive In Front of His Wife
Back in 2017 when #MeToo was at its peak, the actor Terry Crews took to Twitter to share an experience that many men in the industry have faced but had kept quiet because of societal norms. Crews in a sixteen-part thread on Twitter narrated his sexual misconduct experience and accused a big-shot Hollywood agent of the act. Although applauded for his bravery by millions online, this act was not well received by his “friends” in the industry who ended up threatening him to drop the lawsuit in order to get work, more specifically to get cast in The Expendables 4.
Terry Crews did not back down and thus without any hesitation turned down the movie, keeping his career at stake.
Terry Crews was allegedly assaulted by a Hollywood agent
The NFL player turned actor Terry Crews shared an incident that helped pave the way for many men in the industry to come forward with their unheard stories. During the #MeToo era, the actor came out with a 16-thread-long tweet to let the world know that men are also subjected to heinous acts of creeps all over the world. He wrote,
“My wife [and] I were at a Hollywood function last year [and] a high level Hollywood executive came over [to] me and groped my privates,–Jumping back I said, ‘What are you doing?!’ My wife saw everything [and] we looked at him like he was crazy. He just grinned like a jerk.”
Crews was initially prettified to share his story with the rest of the world, but all the Harvey Weinstein allegations that were coming out during that time compelled him to tell his story to the world. A month later, Adam Venit was revealed to be his alleged assailant. In the following week, Crews reported the situation to the police, but because it was outside of the statute of limitations, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office chose not to take action. So, Crews filed a lawsuit against Venit and the company WME.
Terry Crews was threatened to drop the charges against Venit
In the month of February following his confession, the actor tweeted out the following and expanded on it later when he appeared on the Senate Judiciary Committee for testimony. He wrote,
“management got a call last week from Avi Lerner producer of EXPENDABLES 4 saying I could avoid any ‘problems’ on the sequel if I dropped my case against @WME.”
The actor was set to star in the fourth installment of the movie The Expandables, but everything came to a halt when the producer of the project, Avi Lerner reached out to Crews’ management and allegedly threatened the actor to drop the allegations against the personality. During the testimony, the actor expanded on the topic saying,
“No. Simply because this same producer is under his own … investigation,—Abusers protect abusers — and this is one thing I had to decide, whether I was going to draw the line on. Am I going to be a part of this or am I gonna take a stand, and there are projects I had to turn down.”
Terry Crews further concluded his thoughts by saying,
What happened to me has happened to many many other men in Hollywood—And since I came forward with my story I have had thousands and thousands of men come to me and say ‘Me too, this is my story’. But I did not have the confidence, or I did not feel safe enough, to come out. Because what happens is you get blacklisted, your career is in danger — after that, no one wants to work with you.”
He claimed that coming out with such a story was scary since he did not know how would a man’s voice in this situation be perceived he was also in doubt if the law enforcement would take the allegations seriously. This move also put his career at stake and the fear of being blackballed kept him away. But when many people started sharing their stories using #MeToo, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star also gained the courage to share his experience.
Source: Deadline
