Terry Crews On #MeToo And The Backlash He Experienced
In October 2017, Terry Crews tweeted a series of honest, sad, and alarming messages.
“This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to me,” he began to describe an encounter with an at-the-time-unnamed male executive who groped his genitals.
Terry said he feared how the incident would be reported, afraid that he could end up in jail. Hollywood and the public alike were shocked by Terry’s Twitter confession.
However, Terry’s unfortunate and frightening experience helped him understand those who have gone through similar things. It also helped him understand why victims of sexual harassment often choose to remain silent, he wrote in the same series of Twitter messages.
On the other hand, this has perhaps helped the rest of the public understand that these things can happen to anyone. Even men, former NFL players.
The public paid attention to Terry’s tweets, but until today, he had not addressed the elephant in the room properly — masculinity. The actor tweeted an interesting message today, along with a link to Esquire.
Terry has finally spoken up what he calls the “man code.” He considers this phenomenon to be a subtle, unspoken cult of masculinity.
It’s the backlash I experienced when I came forward with my story: men who were angry that, at first, I didn’t name my abuser; men who questioned why I didn’t fight back, who said I let him do it, who said I must’ve wanted it, who said I must be gay. The man code is why I endured the male version of a female survivor being asked, “What were you wearing?”
Celebrities like Isaiah Washington, Gabrielle Union, and Tyler James Williams expressed support for the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor, BET reported, after the same online magazine had pointed out lack of Hollywood’s response to Terry Crews’ attempt to call out his assaulter.
In December 2017, Terry named his abuser: agent Adam Venit, TMZ reported. That was only the beginning.
“I believe my family is being tracked and possibly bugged,” the actor announced in another Twitter message, accusing Adam Venit’s agency of hacking into his computer and spying on his family amid the sexual assault case.
More recently, Crews implied that he is being pressured to drop the lawsuit.
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.
Guess who’s Sly’s agent?
ADAM VENIT— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) February 3, 2018
WME, William Morris Endeavor, is the agency Venit works for — he is head of their motion picture department. The Expendables 4 is a film Terry is supposed to star in. “Sly” in this tweet is Sylvester Stallone, who’s been the face of the Expendables franchise since its inception.
Terry’s fans have expressed their support via social media, retweeting the actor’s messages and vocally criticizing those who are trying to silent him.
How will the #MeToo movement end? Only time will tell, but Terry Crews seems to be an important part of it.
