{"id":506970,"date":"2026-03-06T09:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/506970\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T09:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:21:13","slug":"terrence-howard-says-denzel-washington-called-out-his-aggression-20-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/506970\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrence Howard says Denzel Washington called out his aggression 20 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terrence Howard<\/a> said that in a meeting that took place over 20 years ago, Denzel Washington<\/a> called him out about his aggression problems. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me, \u2018Look at your hands, you\u2019re always like this. Your fists are all balled up,’\u201d Howard said on the PBD podcast hosted by businessman and conservative media personality Patrick Bet-David. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Denzel] said, \u2018And all these producers wanna do is try to open your hand so they can put money in it. But you won\u2019t do it, you keep your hands all tight like this. And you\u2019re blowing it.’\u201d <\/p>\n

Howard said the conversation happened while he was still on the \u201cchitlin circuit,\u201d before he had the support of major studios. Right after, he went on to star in the 2005 movie \u201cHustle & Flow,\u201d with Taraji P. Henson, for which he received an Oscar nomination for his role as a pimp named DJay. <\/p>\n

A few years later, he also got the opportunity to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe\u2019s \u201cIron Man\u201d sequel in 2010 for the role of James \u201cRhodey\u201d Rhodes, but ended up being replaced by Don Cheadle. Initially, the story was that Howard left over a salary dispute, but in this latest interview with Bet-David, he gave another reason. <\/p>\n

While promoting the film \u201cThe Brave One\u201d with producer Joel Silver at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Howard recalled that a reporter asked him why he was not top-billed with his co-star Jodie Foster. Silver apparently heard about this, and that Howard also felt frustrated with his place in the credits, so he told the \u201cThe Best Man\u201d actor that Foster was the star, not him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Thank you for telling me that, now I understand,\u201d Howard said, recounting the situation. \u201cBut, you have to remember that I\u2019m a man just like you, and if you ever talk to me in that way again, I\u2019m going to knock your teeth out of your mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his experiences in Hollywood, Howard said on the podcast, \u201cI\u2019ve had a number of opportunities, but my aggression, my need to be a man, you know, \u2018You ain\u2019t gon\u2019 talk to me like that,\u2019 instead of learning how to diffuse.\u201d <\/p>\n

Howard also claimed that after the success of \u201cEmpire,\u201d which ran from 2015-2020, he\u2019s been blacklisted from the industry because he tried to sue 20th Century Fox Film and its parent company, Disney. In 2020, he asserted that 20th Century Fox Film owed him compensation for the use of his name and image in merchandise. He also sued his former talent agency, CAA, over his \u201cEmpire\u201d wages in 2023, claiming they had asked him to accept a lower salary for the show than he deserved. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re no longer on their main list of calling because you\u2019ve broken the cardinal rule, which is you never talk,\u201d Howard said. \u201cEven if you\u2019re being screwed over, you never talk. You\u2019re supposed to keep that quiet and keep working as a good slave, and I didn\u2019t do that. I fought about some injustices that I felt was happening with me.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terrence Howard said that in a meeting that took place over 20 years ago, Denzel Washington called him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,57086,88,230482],"class_list":{"0":"post-506970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-denzel-washington","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-terrence-howard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}