Soul Boom - Terry Crews Breaks the Shame Cycle

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Terry Crews (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, White Chicks) opens up about addiction, masculinity, faith, and healing. He shares his journey through addiction, religious trauma, and the deep inner work required to rebuild his life and marriage. He shares how recovery helped him rediscover his soul, his artistry, and his definition of love and how public accountability set him free. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! ⁠⁠⁠Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale at ⁠https://www.stamps.com/soulboom⁠. Thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring the show! Airbnb 👉 ⁠⁠⁠https://airbnb.com/host⁠⁠⁠ Quince (FREE shipping!) 👉 ⁠⁠https://www.quince.com/soulboom⁠ Bragg (20% OFF! CODE: SOULBOOM) 👉⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.bragg.com⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👉 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to So, boom. The definition of recovery means to get something back. Get freedom, choice, and sanity back. Because every time you use, you put a block between the people in your life. I don't want real life. I want this. I was always blaming other people. You got to be powerless, and it makes you stronger.

Hey, man, the universe gives you the power, man, when you let go. Yeah, that's a serenity. prayer and action. Responsibility and excuses can't exist in the same place. The best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself. If you can't control other people, guess what you can control? You. Man, I was not prepared to get this emotional today, but...

Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Again, it's not that I know everything, but I've been through some stuff. And I'm like, you know, this might help you. Yeah.

Listen, take it or leave. You only want to trust me considering the life I've lived. Listen, I've had people, my kids look at me and go, dad, whatever. And they didn't come back and go, ah, you're right. Yeah. But you can't gloat. Can't do that. The American way is gloating.

The American way is like, I told you. Yeah. No. But such a different set of obstacles to be kid of a celebrity growing up with money in L.A. and with phones is a very different path than growing up in Flint, Michigan with an alcoholic, abusive dad. Poor. And broke. Poor.

And Nicole. Which is totally different. Yeah. All I wanted to do, it was like, you know what? I was a bullet that you loaded at a gun. Like, get me out of here. Yeah. Sports was your way out.

That was the way out. I knew. And see, but that's a trick in a way, too, because I was an artist. Painting, drawing. It was sculpting. Will you sketch me like one of your French girls? I could do that. You could do that.

You could do that. I could do that. I'm a big art guy. Okay, left-handed, right-brained. Yeah. That was my thing. You were art major at Eastern Michigan. I had a scholarship, Western.

Western Michigan, one of the Michigan. I had a scholarship to Interlaken Arts Academy. Amazing. Amazing. Really famous for art. And then I had a scholarship to Western Michigan University and then walked on to the football team. So, but my, when I say trick, I never thought art would be my way because I said, no, I never saw anybody make any money. Yeah.

I was like, no, you got to die. To me, to be a successful artist, you got to die. Right. Do the Van Gogh thing. So I'm just doing this as a hobby and whatever. But, you know, I didn't know you could actually get money and kind of make a career. Well, the thing was, is football was, they told me, but the way you're going to do it is you get this scholarship in football. So I was already in a mode where I wanted to be big and strong because the neighborhood I was in, the crack dealers, the gangsters, my father.

everything said be tough, be strong to survive. Like, I would have my artistic portfolio, and I'd walk through gang members, and they'd be like, hey man, what's that, man? What do you think it is? And it's the game. It was all pretend. And I actually used these characters in movies that I played.

Oh, yeah. Because you just come, you know that guy. Yeah. And then I go into school, and then I geek out about Star Wars. Star Wars and beyond Mr. Artsy and then come back out. Yeah, man, what's up? What?

What's up with you? Huh? I mean, just weird. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it's, the phrase they call it is, I forget, code switching. Okay, right, right, right. And if they ever heard me, they would say, man, he'd talk white.

You talk white. You talk like a white dude, you know? And I was like, oh, no, man, you got the wrong one. And then when I give it, you get around the guys, you actually talk dumb. You know, you have to pretend to not be smart, you know, because that would kill you. They would literally look at you like, you just, that's a snitch right there. You know, like, you just, it was snitch, it was weird. It was, you know, it wasn't cool.

So, but I would nerd out at home. How did your parents feel about you with your artsy streak? First of what, they loved it. My mother, like, before she passed, she passed in 2015. But she was like, Terry, never forget, you're an artist. That's beautiful. That's great. She loved.

Because, again, because I was so religious, and we weren't allowed to go to movies, weren't allowed to listen to secular music, all this stuff. What branch of Christianity were you touched? Church of God and Christ. It was Pentecostal. Wow. Lots of Holy Roman. Was there speaking in tongues?

Oh, speaking in tongues? A lot of running. I mean, there would be straight. Oh, yeah. Casting out demons. and people running in the church. It was wild. Like, we had people sprinting from the middle aisle

all the way into the pulpit, and they were hitting ball. I grew up like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know. It's great entertainment, though. Oh, it was exciting. I mean, you know, and it was a lot of music. Loring church. That's not like white people church.

No, no, no. No, it was active. Like, you sweat. You came out of church like, Singing too? Oh, singing. It's shouting. I love it.

Singing, demons, talking in tongues, loving. Shouting, screaming. And this was the thing. Laying on hands. Laying on them hands. Right. It's the whole thing. But I'm going to tell you, man.

And this was so weird because I was, I just remember being maybe six or seven. And I was like, when is it going to take me? When is it? Because the thing is, people go, oh, oh, oh. and they will get you. Yeah, the spirit. The spirit got me. And they went out and I was, oh, look at my friend, and he jumped.

Oh, he did, and I got him. It got him. And I'm looking around. I'm looking around the whole church. People just snatching up. And I'm like, why don't I feel anything? And I said, why don't, why can't, when is it going to get me? And I used to just sit and pray and be like, come on, come on.

And it never happened. Then the pastor got up in front of the whole church. I'll never forget this day. Again, I'm little, man. And he said, if you don't feel nothing, you must not have nothing. Oh, man. Oh, no. I don't have nothing.

I don't have it. And I just said, God, please, please, please give it to me. And I never, and I remember going to my friend, and he jumped up. I said, what does it feel like? Like, you, he said, I said, well, you got it. You got it. He was like, man, it just took me. It just took me.

And I was like, man. I said, why don't it take me? Dude, I was confused. Yeah. And did that go into your teenage years too? Always into the teenage year. But then finally, I started to realize, oh, but see, this is what happened. My pastor, literally, the pastor at the time, had affairs all over the church.

Okay. He was selling drugs out of the pulpit. It was a game. And my father was out, however, it was in the streets. He was like, yeah, I know the elder Joe. I know the real. real elder Jones. And my mother would be like,

stop talking about Elder Jones. You do not touch the God's anointed. And then he was like, I see him in the street, though. So everybody knew because he was getting, he was copping drugs with other people. And they were like, man, that's Elder Jones down the street, man.

But then he'd go to church and no one, they would put the blinders on. Let's stay in our bubble. But I knew something was wrong. Everything was the world versus us. So anything, like, you couldn't go start a business. because that was worldly.

You couldn't go be an actor because that was worldly. We had, it was a big... So it's a weird way of kind of keeping you down. Oh, my God, wait, you never got anything. So all you could do was eat. And so there were a lot of obese people. And they didn't really mark, you know, obesity or gluttony as sent.

You know, it was kind of like... Well, forget that. We're going to sit around and we're going to eat and we're going to talk about how the world... is bad and we somehow are better, you know. And it was this very elitist, very us, very, and I just, I remember just going, this is everything I wanted to do, I was punished for.

And so you never talked about sex, ever. Like that was no-no. Yet everybody was somehow doing it. But, you know, so it was this weird dichotomy. And that is what you. a lot of my pornography addiction because the shame cycle is huge. Like, you see it and you feel like, I shouldn't have seen it. But I loved it.

But I shouldn't have. Yeah. Oh, my God. So now you're like, oh, man, if I could see it again. The forbidden fruit. But I want to see it again. The forbiddenness of it makes it a lot more compelling. You literally split.

Right. It's in your brain. It's a Jekyll and Hyde thing. Oh, you're like, and then you go back. And you go, oh, look, oh, my, and wait, and you have to understand, I'm a kid. And this is one thing about pornography. A lot of people think that, you know, they say, yeah, you're right. When you're 18 years old, you can be a discerning adult, you can choose, and the whole thing.

But I don't know anybody that discovered pornography at 18. Right. No, no. No, no. It's dropped off. It's like the drug dealer outside the school who's like, hey, man, here's a free pack of crack. There you go. hey man, I got some cocaine for you for three, and you're like 10.

Yeah. Because you get a customer for life. They know that. The 70s pornography, people don't understand. Like, it was hysterical. It's like, hey, Rayne, my cousin Don's got three penthouses. And he's hit him in the stump out behind Eric Mitchell's house. You know, that big stump?

Yeah, they're out there. Like, let's go look at it. And after school, like, we go out to the stump behind Eric Mitchell. Always. Always. Always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they'd get.

soggy from being in the stump, you know, but you'd kind of like peel the page. You're like, oh, it's like twin cowgirls on a hay bale, you know, with their boobies out, and you're 11 years old, and this is your introduction. But again, very different now where you've got parents are giving their kids phones without any blocks on them whatsoever. And, you know, in about 13 and a half seconds, you can have like, you know, the most hardcore gangbangs you can, have you ever imagined in your life? just up on your browser. Can I tell you, it's changing human sexuality as we know it.

You actually fall in love with the phone. You don't fall in love with the girl. Wow. You fall in love with the experience of looking at the girl through the phone. Yeah. So real women don't, it's like, oh, no. Yeah. No, get away from me.

Yeah. I don't know. Guys would much rather. Because real women, they have smells. and they've got blemishes. Bill? And problems? Yeah, needs.

Listen, my perfect example of this is I'll never forget when I was in the NFL and the big, big thing was we would go to, they would go to a strip club. And I was like, oh, and I was trying to fit in with NFL guys. And I was going to strip club. We go on the Magic City. We're Atlanta. We're in Atlanta. We're going to Magic City.

And I was like, oh, and they pumped it all up. And I was like, okay, okay. So we go there. And oh, my God. You say smells and sense and atmosphere and music and you're like, whoa, whoa, okay. And the girls are all dancing around. But then the girl would want to sit down with the football players and start talking. What y'all doing?

She's like, and all the guys, we all look at her like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Conversations. And she's like, well, you know, my kids, you know, and you're like, oh, stop, stop, stop. I don't want to know what your kids. You wanted to stay it in fantasy, right? Because you are becoming human before my eyes. I don't like your humanity.

Be this doll, be this thing that no one can really touch and see. It's kind of like, I just want you to be a page in my magazine or just a thing. A screenshot or a jiff or a little porn video or whatever. You're not human. And I have to say this. What happens is there's a whole generation of men. that have learned to not tie that humanity in with women, which makes it really easy to abuse

and really easy to discount and degrade because they play things. It's a toy. It's like, no, no, you're here for me. And it changes how you think about people. They become objects and body parts. I talked to a therapist, friend of mine, and she had like a clinic in Los Angeles

and she said the number of like sex addict, young folk are coming in, you know, not like you think about like porn addicted sex addict, like old like pervert guys, 22 year olds coming in who were coming in because they were unable to get erections with their girlfriends

because they had been watching porn for 10 years and then human interaction no longer aroused them. like you said, you know, the dopamine, the oxytocin just from from the phone and from the images. And do you have 22-year-olds going on Viagra in order to try and have a sex life with a human being? It's heroin. Yeah. It's heroin. It's like a shot that when you, when you, I've never been on drugs.

I mean, that's not my thing, but I know what addiction feels like. Yeah. And going back to normal, it doesn't do it. You know, like, you can get to a point where you're like, oh, you know, where this doesn't do it for me. How did you get help? How did you get caught or did you raise the white flag? How did you ask for help with porn addiction? And I, and by the way, too, like I've talked about this.

Like, I'm poly addicted, right? So it started with drugs and alcohol, but porn gambling, food, workaholism, codependence. You name it. Like, I've sampled it. And so I've definitely been there. And I know how those algorithms work, you know, on those porn sites and they just keep you coming back in the same way that candy crush or social media

keeps you coming back. But it's a lot more insidious because it has to do with a beautiful, true, and important part of human nature, which is our sexuality. And how is our sexuality expressed with another person in intimacy? And it sabotages that. So it makes it a little bit different than like,

TikTok, you know, but it's the same kind of algorithmic behavioral addiction. But tell me, can you go a little bit more granular in your story? I will. You know, I'll never forget. I can go real granular. February 10th, 2010, snowstorm in New York. I was shooting a pilot for TBS called Are We There Yet? We were doing 10 episode pilots. It actually ended up getting picked up. and we were celebrating the end of the shoot of 10 episodes. And I was in New York and went to the Mercer Hotel. My wife was in the L.A. And my wife kept calling me.

Like, the thing is, she was just like, Terry, something sums up. I don't, what is going on with you? Like, you're acting weird. I don't. And here I am, I'm like, look, what is your problem? I'm very successful. Yeah. We're doing good.

I'm providing for the family. I'm getting work. I'm over here working hard. It's like, what are you bugging me about? And she wouldn't stop. And the thing is, my wife did not know. But the thing is, I was always, always. How much were you using porn?

How many, how many others? I mean, I was hooked. There were times when Dave turning in the night. And this is another thing that was really weird. And I have to say this, because there were certain times that were more, I was more susceptible, be it Friday night. Because Friday night is when everybody was celebrating.

Like, okay, we did everything. And I always pride myself, like, I'm not going out. Like, it was a weird, like that two people thing. When I'm, no, I don't drink. I'm proud of, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. I'm just going to stay in the room and you guys go out and do your thing. And I felt very arrogant about who I was. And I would go in there and I would spend hours watching porn.

hours. And it was one of those things, like, I felt like, okay, I would be all guilty, but I'll never do that again. But it would always happen pretty much once a week, maybe twice. And if I had two or three days off, especially when I'm off, gone, like, away from home. On the road, yeah. It was, I mean, it was like benders. Like, you know what I mean? It was weird. And 10 years earlier, from that time, I had cheated on my wife at a massage parlor. And I had, and I had, I vowed. I would never take that step. But I did.

And I said, okay, this is a secret. I'm taking with me for life. Like, I will die with this. So that's it. But I said, so I did, I never did that again, but the porn use just ramped up after that. So all these time. And my wife hit me with the question. She said, what is it?

I don't know about you, Terry Cruz. Whoa. Great. I don't know what happened, man. I said, I'm tired. I'm tired. I can't hide this anymore. And I said, you know, 10 years ago, I went to a massage parlor, got a hand job.

And that's one thing you don't know about me. It came out just like that. She went, like, this gasp. Now, remember, I'm thinking. But that was 10 years ago. But to her, it was a second ago. It was like a yesterday, yeah. Who are you?

Yeah. And that's just the beginning. I ain't even tell her all this other stuff. I'm thinking here's just, because I was just tired. And I knew our relationship was over. You know, there's a thing where, because every time you use,

you put a block between the people in your life. You know what I mean? Whatever it is, it's like, you're in the way. I much rather, I don't want real life. I want this. So we'll put a brick between us and our relationship. And I knew, I just thought it was part of Hollywood.

I was like, yeah, here comes to divorce. That's what it is. Like, this is why you see these guys. It's supposed to happen. And I was like, this is it. And she said, Terry, don't come home. It's over. I said, what do you mean?

That was 10 years. And I'm trying to rationalize. Like, you need to grow up and understand. Oh, dude. She's like, I don't know you. What is this? You've been lying to me the whole time. And I went, oh, my God.

And she said, don't come home and slamming the phone down. And I remember just thinking for a minute there. I was like, well, yeah, this is how it is. I'll just give me another girl, give me another woman, and find me, and I heard myself speaking this way. And I didn't like me. I was like, what are you doing? Who are you?

And dude, the question always had been, why don't you, why doesn't she believe me? Then, for a split second, the question shifted, why am I lying? Changed the whole format of my life. I said, I've been lying this whole time. I'm lying to everybody. I'm a whole other person.

But there's an image that everyone loves that I've been holding up, but that's not me. And then I knew that wasn't me. And I knew who I really was. So I would dress it up every day. But I felt like a dirty, down, nasty dog. And usually if you feel that way,

you go right back to the mud. And I said, and I call my friend, a really good friend. I said, man, I just lost my wife and my family. It's over. He said, Terry, I can't promise you you're going to get your wife and family back. But you need to get better for you. And I look, what does that mean?

Okay. I said, because all my whole life, the reason I did good things was to get things. You know, the phrase of even my wife and I had was called Scooby Snacks. Like, the reason you did this is to get sex. Or the reason I did this great thing so I'd get money. or did this to get accolades. Attention, yeah. Awards.

You know, that joke is killed so I can get the, but did you good for good sake? What's the point? Like, you want to give to the poor so everybody sees you because you're getting it now, you know, but to give and nobody knows. Right. What's the point?

You know what I mean? That was how I lived my life. Like, it all had to be visual. It had to be images. Right. Image management. And my wife was like, you're a big old fake. Listen, I'm going to tell you how bad it was.

It would get to a point where if someone, we would pull up into a place. And if someone was watching, I'd jump out of the car, open the door for my wife. But if no one was there, I'd be like, hey, go ahead. Open the door. And she's like, you, you're a fake. You're a big fucking phony. You know, I was like, eh, whatever. Somebody comes up, oh, hey, oh.

Because it was the look. what would it look like? And she's like, I hate this. I hate, I don't understand you. And so she had been seeing this whole thing. So I decided to go to, I went to a counselor and he said, Terry, you got a double life. You know, there's a place in Phoenix called psychological counseling services that deals with sex addiction. I was like, oh my God, sex addict.

You know, like, huh? Yeah. I don't drink. I don't smoke. Yeah. I work out every day. I'm pure. I'm spiritual.

Yeah, but I had no, but also now I'm single and I can't go home. And I went, oh, man, I got to check this out. I got to, and I've never done therapy because in the religious world, therapy was viewed as quackery. They were like, no, no, if God didn't do it, mm-mm, mm-mm. It's worldly. It's worldly. Mm-mm-mm. Them psycho people going to mess with your brain.

And I remember my father, who was a big time alcoholic, would go to the psychologist, and then the psychologist killed himself. Oh, when I was a kid, and I was like, my father's so bad that he made the psychologist kill himself. Made his shrink kill himself. Jumped off a bridge. I'll never forget this.

I was like, man, I'm going to look at the paper, and I was in my teens. I'm like, this dude jumped off a bridge. I said, and you, I said, uh-uh. Now, I'm not seeing this guy. You know, because in my head, I'm going, oh, that's weird. They're all, I don't want to kill myself.

So I finally go in there, and I got everything. And all my suspicions were validated. I was like, this is not me. And I'm in a group. And I'm like, oh, no, this is crazy. But then all of a sudden, they were like, hey, man, is your father an alcoholic? I was like, yeah. How did you know that?

I said, well, you're in a very religious household. How did you know that? And this is like an hour in. And I was like, they just started reading my mail, reading it, reading it, opening the letters. And I was going to, and do, you got to stand. I probably had never cried to that. I mean, I don't remember crying until that week that I was in an intensive.

And it went. I was there for like 10 hours. hours a day, weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping. And let me tell you, the weeping went for almost three years. Three years. Wow. I couldn't stop crying. Wow.

And everything. And I, it was like- How long did you spend in that place? Well, I was there for a whole, like, eight-day period. And then I went home and then me and my wife came back because there's betrayal trauma. That she had to do. And then there was disclosure, which was when you had to do it. detail. Listen, man, I was, it was what, there were times she thought I was at work and I was in some

bookstore in the little video boxes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Just horrible, horrible. Like stuff I cringe, even now, oh my God. Yeah. You know, I, and let me tell you, when it happened, it was a Jones that was weird. Like, I would go down the freeway and you see like X-rated bookstore. I would log it in my brain where it is. And then I drive like 45 minutes home. But I knew exactly where to go back, 45 minutes. And I'll be going all day. My wife said, you've been gone all day.

Where you been? But I went on the freeway back to that truck stop where it was adult movies. This is where, again, it was that Jonesy. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, uh-oh. It was like a drug addict looking for their fix. Yeah. And on the way home, oh, I'll never do this again.

I'll never do this again. Yeah. So you guys went in as a couple. You did disclosure. We did everything. And man, it's slowly every, what was so good, though, is that my, because my willingness to change allowed my wife to give me another shot. Because, again, it could have went either way. That was her decision to make.

But she said, I see you want to. to change because I realize, because going in, I just, I said, because I said to, there was a point where I was always blaming other people. And the victim mentality is heinous simply because you never run out of valid excuses as a victim. I'm black, I'm poor, I grew up in this, I was religious, I was, my father was abusive, he beat my mother. And the table was always full of excuses. But the moment you take responsibility, you have to get rid of every excuse.

Responsibility and excuses can't exist in the same place. It just never do. When it's you, well, you don't like something. Okay, I'll just move it. That was, because I would always be like, no, it's got to stay here. Hey, man. You don't have to eat what's put in front of you.

You could just say, no. I don't want, oh my God, like, I don't, okay, okay. That was strange to me. You know, and this is where I became, as even as an actor, they asked me, they said, what if a director told you to do something you didn't want to do? I said, well, I have to do it. Terry, no, you don't. I said, no, but they hired me.

I said, Terry, you don't have to do what a director tells you you have to do. I said, yeah, but the whole movie's on me. And if I don't do it, they'll hire, they'll get rid of me. He said, well, that means you, yes, that means you just move on. I said, but I'm an actor. Yeah. You have to understand, see, this is the, this is why even athletes and stuff, they don't separate this, they don't have the right to do this as an athlete.

I have to do this because the whole world is counting on me. So I have to play hurt. I have to play on this broken leg. I have to. Right. And no, you don't. Yeah. As soon as you say, no, I'm going to sit out.

They go, look at you. You know how many people counting on you? And if you did that, usually they were looking like something was wrong with you and I couldn't take stuff like that. Or you were soft. I was a pleaser. And that's what,

and that makes you a great actor. by the way, he'll do it. Wow, he goes in, oh, yeah. But it doesn't do good for you. You know what I mean? Like for you to actually say, no, and to actually challenge the director, I wouldn't do it.

I didn't challenge my coaches. I didn't challenge my director. And any time I did, it was huge punishments. Even back when I was in church as a kid, if you challenged them, I remember asking questions. They were like, shut up. First of all, sit down. Yeah, shut up.

Wow. So anything that I ever questioned, anytime I ever was like, well, why did God do that? And why is it? Hey, man. Hey, shut up. God knows more than you do. So that means your God. So nobody really wanted to tell me what was going on.

Yeah. But I'm really struck by this, the double life thing, which I think every addict can relate to. You know, you're the good boy on the outside, doing exactly what the coaches say, what the TV directors say. you don't go partying, you don't drink, you're a family man, you're opening the door for your wife when people are watching, but then you have this double life. How did you guys heal that?

How did you eventually regain her trust? You said you were crying off and on for three years. Oh, yeah. We went through everything. When I say polygraph tests, there were, I mean, total disclosure moments where she was like, I'm out. I can't do this.

And I just have to say, okay. And then she'd come back like, damn it, you, I'm going to work through this. And you know what was weird? What I want to say is there were times I wanted to quit and she didn't. And then there were times when she wanted to quit and I didn't. I just thank God we didn't want to quit at the same time. You know, it's kind of timed out where we was just like,

I said, no, no, I'm holding on. Because there was a lot of things where I had to, you know, really say what I needed. And it was different for me because, again, I was used to being this image and pleaser and this and this. And so I would go, saying no was really hard. Like, people wanted me to something. No. And I would feel really crazy about it. Like, oh, people are going to be mad at me.

We're going to, nah, nah, nah. Because, again, as this a little religious kid, with alcoholic dad, all I wanted, I didn't tell nobody, no, I couldn't. And so, as an adult, learning to tell people no was crazy to me. And even my wife, it was time she'd be mad, and I knew that I, she'd come home and she'd cry, and I knew I caused it.

And she's, I want you to me, man, man, man. And I'm going, no. See, that's because you're like, Like, this is a woman I hurt, so I have to do whatever she said. No, no, I have to get better for me. That's a different, not this. And anybody listening will be like, you bastard, how could you do that to her? But there's two different ways of thinking about this.

We have to think about the best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself. Not to make the most of other people, not to make the most of all the systems, not to make the most of your political party yourself. You have to improve, and all of a sudden, the conditions. It's not the other way around. If you work on the conditions, what do you control? Hey, man, AA is all about what you can control.

A.A. is literally knowing the difference. Yeah, that's a serenity prayer in action. You got to know. what is it you can actually control? And if you can't control other people, guess what you can control you? And so it became where, it was the way I said it was,

I love you, but the answer is no. And this is what I'm going to do. And she had to learn to have her know. And I had to respect her no, because that was another thing I did When she would come up to me and I was like, be like, hey, how about we get together?

No. And I had to respect that. Listen, there were so many things we had to do. There was a 90-day sex fast. Living together, being together, 90 days, no sex. And I was like, can I do this? Because here I am. You're an addicted person.

I need release. I need something. And I said, no, I'm going to do this. We got to 75 days and she was like, okay, it's okay. And I was like, all right, we went to 75 days. I said, no, let's start over. We have to get through this. So we went 90 days with no sex.

But this is another period. But let me tell you what happened. I saw her who she really was. No sex involved. It turned into she was 10 years old. I was 10 years old. and I was hand her a flower. No sex involved.

Like, when you're a kid and you just like a girl, I just like you or you, and I just think you're pretty and I think you're nice, and I think you're sweet. That's how it took these days to become where I said, I had to separate what sex was from what love was.

Because, you know, every song, every R&B song in the world that's conflated sex and love. You know what I mean? I love you tonight, you know. And how about we make love? Dude. But you realize that's sex and love are two different things.

Absolutely. And most men can have sex without being in love at all. Okay. But love is different. Love is all about how can I help you. Well, some men can't have sex when there is love, you know. and then the sex breaks down too. Right.

What does your work look like now? What does your program look like now around your powerlessness around pornography? Oh, just boundaries, boundaries in every way. Your blocks on your devices, your accountability, 12-step program, anything like that? I had them in the beginning, but can I tell you one thing that happened?

And one thing that trick, that really helped me. is you get angry. You start to realize that things are trying to get you. And this is something that a lot of people don't talk about, okay? Because we're supposed to look at the world and we're all supposed to be wonderful and everything. Oh, no, you're going to have a really, you know, a bad view of everything. No, no, I love you, but I don't trust you. The whole point is when I look at my phone and you look and I look at something that comes in and it's a, you're trying to get me.

Yeah. You, you're not, what you say you're doing is not what you're doing. When you look at this algorithm, you're pulling me somewhere. And the pop-up ads, if you look at any sports score, there's always like the Sports Illustrated, you know, bikini model in the corner and like click here. Dude, every four emails is a scam. Think about it. Every four emails, you click on it, it's just trying to take something from you. If that gets you angry, you're like, delete.

I'm not going to even spend any time with you. And that's what made me mad. I got angry. Pornography became this big beast. And let me tell you one thing I did. And the biggest way I knew to stab it in the heart was to go public. I went public. It was really brave.

I remember reading your first interviews around it. It was like, whoa. I got Facebook live. There was Facebook live. Yeah. And they were giving it out. And I was like, I could stab this thing in the heart right now. Mm-hmm.

Because-hmm. It makes the stakes so much higher. Oh, listen, you're only as sick as your secrets. You know what I mean? Because that was my life. Oh, oh, oh, the image, hide, hide, oh, oh. I said, no hiding. I'll never hide again.

This is why I can talk about this stuff so freely right now. Because I said, I was in the car, and I was just coming out of the gym. And I was saying, you know, I had an addiction of pornography. You got to stand back in, I was probably 20, I forget, it was like eight years after I had been in therapy, probably six or seven years after it. You can look it up. Yeah.

But I called it Dirty Little Secret. And it's on the Internet right now. You can look it up, Terry Cruz, Dirty Little Secret. That video is right there. Yeah. And I went public for the first time. and your wife was cool with that. Oh, she didn't know.

You just made that decision. I had to. I just did it because I didn't want anybody to talk me out of it. And wait, and this is part of the, this is part of my thing where I had to get better for me. Now, if she hadn't been, well, that's something you got to sort out. But I have to do this. Like, I knew what I had to do to kill this thing, to stab this thing in the heart. Because it's a monster.

You know what I mean? And I was like, I don't ever want to hide again. And integrity is me, it's just being one whole person, no two, no splits. That's what integrity is. And you got to stand, it rocked the world at the time. Every morning news show was like, hey, Cruz, amidst to a pornography addiction. They wanted me out on Good Morning America, Today's show. They wanted me out there the next day.

And I said, yeah. Just look at the video. It's all right there. I need to fly out and say this again. And then I was doing, I was major, super big and old Spice at the time. So I was Mr. Old Spice. They called and they were like, oh man, I think we got to get rid of them. I'm an Asian call.

They said, Terry, they're going to drop you. They're going to drop you. I said, I understand. They didn't sign up for this. I understand. And listen, if they have to do it, They have to do it. But this is what I have to do.

This is my no. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And dude, wait a minute. Two days went by and I was racing for the like rejection and everything. And they were like, wait, he didn't get caught. We didn't catch him in any scandal.

He's just talking about something he's struggling with. About what he struggled with. Which is so common. And the reason he came forward, I said, listen, and you can look at the video. I said, if anyone else is going through something like this. I want you to know you're not alone. You're not by yourself. No more hiding.

No more hiding. I just wanted you know. I'm with you. Man, it was so free. And my wife looked at me like, what? I was prepared for anything when I came home.

And she was like, this is the man. I always wanted. And when you do that, man, and when you see it, and then you see how much it robbed you, you feel like a thief has robbed you for years. So I don't have blocks, because I don't need them. What I do have is standards and practices, and I replace every bad thing with a good one.

This is the good thing I'm going to do. instead of that, I'm going to do this. Choices. Choices. Good choices. And am I tempted? Yes. But at the same time, I just think robbed me.

It's like going back with the guys on the street that beat you up and robbed you. Now you're going to go hang out with them again? Yeah. Nope. Nope. I learned my lesson. I learned my lesson. And I talk to my kids like this.

And a lot of them are like, oh, you're a little overboard now. I said, but I went through it, man. I went through it. And this is the wonderful thing. And this is the good news. This is good. Is that recovery has always been given this. When you see, some people say they're in recovery.

And it's very sad, usually a sad sack affair. Like, I'm in recovery. And I'm always going to be in this. I'm always there. And, you know, hey, Paul. how you doing? We're all in recovery. But you can't understand.

The definition of recovery means to get something back. That's what recovery is. You, the person, the thing that stole these things from you, you are getting them back. You get freedom. Every day. You get freedom, choice, and sanity back. You see what I mean?

You're getting it back. Wait. And every day, you're becoming more and more, more and more the real you. All that other stuff is a fake you. Not real. And that's why I'm like, this is good news. This is not, oh, woe is me.

Yeah. Listen, I'm going on finding my new shit every day. I'm like, what was stolen? I'm like, I got this today. Oh, my God, I found it. Give me my stuff back. Yeah. And I'm fine and stuff.

I didn't even know I lost. That's what's so great about, I think recovery is just the best term of all time. Imagine if you had your whole lifestyle. Imagine if people who've lost all these things and you found it sitting there, pristine, never messed with it. You found it back again? That's the best news ever.

Every day I feel like a celebration. And this is where the gratitude comes from. Because now I just like, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. because I could have easily been on that dark path. I don't think I would have been here. I'll be honest with you. I just don't. I think something would have taken me out.

It would have taken you down. Somehow, I don't know. But I could say this. I probably would not be successful. Because, I mean, how many guys we know in the biz that they were hot and all of a sudden, they were like, where are they? What happened?

Family's gone. Then they supplant this with some other kind of addiction. And it's over. But I know I have more than I've ever had. But again, I have still yet to discover all that I am. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, there's stuff.

I don't even know that I'm going every day. It's a new thing, man. And it's like, this is good news. That's why Terry Cruz can smile. I'm not looking at it like, oh, look for me. I'm like, yo! And now my job is to tell people you can do that too. Yeah.

You can have it, man. For every tear, it comes with new smiles. You know what I'm saying? Like, man, my wife and I have been married 36 years now. That was a year 20. We went through that. But our marriage is better than it's ever been. That's beautiful.

You see what I mean? Yeah, yeah. There's no secrets. Yeah. Now, you wrote this book, Tough. Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, I loved about the book is redefining what it is to be tough.

And this also has to do with recovery. And it helped me so much a 12-step program of recovery and this idea that in surrender, you gain strength. So there's something about that first step of like, I'm powerless over drugs, alcohol, pornography, whatever it is, my life has become unmanageable. You're throwing up the white flag. You're just like, I give up.

And in the act of doing that, you find, like you have proven here, real strength and real integrity in surrendering and giving up. But out there, surrendering and giving up is weakness. So there's this incredible dichotomy in it of like, I mean, you meet people in those in the room, the 12-step rooms, and they've been through hell, you know, and overcome so much and have so much strength and resilience and fortitude, wisdom and integrity from saying, I'm powerless and also I'm kind of a fuck up and here's my character defects. And so what is it about finding toughness in softness? You know, that vulnerability has just been confused with weakness,

but by people who are trying to manipulate you, usually. You know, It's weird because your friends don't mind you being vulnerable. Think about it. People who love you and are your friends. Oh, man, that was great. When you get vulnerable in front of them. Yeah, sure, sure. That's my man.

That's my man. Only people that hate you, hate your vulnerability. Oh, yeah. You understand? Or jealous. You catch a lot of shit for your vulnerability online on social. There was a time. Oh, my God.

When I came forward about Adam Bennett, molesting me, my agent. Yeah, yeah. You got to understand. Everybody's like, that's big-ass Terry Cruz. He could have just knocked them up, knocked him out with one swing.

What is he talking about? What is he in the Me Too movement for? This is some bullshit. You know how many times I heard that from big, big people like, what are you talking about? Why are you trying to join these women? What are you doing?

And I was like, dude, but so you understand, I had already been through all this stuff. And I was like, no, my no. I was like, because William Morris told me, hey, man, he's a partner. You got to accept it. I said, no, no. And remember how I went public about my own pornography?

I said, hey, guess what? All these women that are you saying deserved it and that's their way into Hollywood and they probably asked for it and the whole thing, it happened to me too. So how you explain this? And what people didn't understand is that if you were telling, you don't get any money. You only get paid for silence. Yeah.

It didn't benefit you one. Non-disclosure is you sign that. That's when you get the check for not saying. But once the women came out, you didn't get any money. I wasn't get anything. It was like, yo, you can't treat people like this. just the agent at my agency who grabs me in front of my wife and my family

in front of a and I'm in a whole room full of white people and I want to knock him in his like again I was going to put my fist through his head but everything in me was like you are better than this you don't have to do this you have choices now

whereas before it's just I'm a man I got I got to beat you up. But my vulnerability is my strength now. So just, I don't have to be anybody up. Nope. In fact, we're just going to go home.

And I confronted and talked to everybody and the whole thing. They all told me that we're checking this very seriously and nothing happened. And I went almost a year. And I was like, anything going to happen? And finally, when I came out, You got to understand.

When I did the tweets about it, I didn't even mention his name. The agency calls me like hours after, a couple hours after the tweets went out when I tweeted about this stuff. And it took over. It was another one of those. Whoa.

Terry Cruz. And Hollywood was like, what are we going to do with this guy? I would walk in a room and half the room would run. And the other room, half of the room would run to me. And people would like, dude. men, women.

That happened to me, man. That's me. This happened to me. And I was like, damn it. See, this is the game that if we don't start talking for real, why are we lying? Why? Let's talk about it.

And finally, because they would not admit their guilt, I just, I had to go public. Yeah. And they exposed the guy Because they felt they were going to get ahead of it And the whole thing I never said his name But they went in

Did all this stuff And I said dude What are you gonna do about the predator You got in your hallways man I said dude You can't treat the clients like this I've given you millions of dollars I can't go to bonds

Get fondled by the guy bag of my groceries He gets fired It's different How is that different And you know And you know, he said, well, shoot your best shot, buddy. He looked at me, told me that. Whoa.

Holy shit. Whoa. I said, okay. You're the agency, right? You work for me, right? No. He's literally like, no, I leverage you. Goodbye.

Huh? What? Okay. Got it. Got it. And I said, I will spend a month. million dollars to win one buck he let me know he was like let's war let's go so okay and i went on a whole time i just i went on every talk show and everywhere i spent my own money i got up to 500 000

of my own money now how many young girls coming into hollywood get molested have that kind of money to battle this kind of stuff they know they don't but i said you know what and let me let me tell you who really, really fueled me. It's my wife. My wife said, Terry, ain't a woman in your life, ain't been through that shit. Let me tell you what you need to do.

And I was like, she was like, I remember getting messed with when I was a kid and everything. And she said, Terry, let's fight this together. I said, I'm with you. I said, you know, you're down with it? She said, I'm down.

That's amazing. Yeah. Because we don't. Did you file a lawsuit or a suit? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I tried. to get the DA and they were like, no, we're not going to touch it. So I filed a civil suit, got to $500,000. But then all of a sudden, all these people came out of the woodwork. Because you don't rob the biggest bank in the world on the first try. Okay. So he was like, I never know. This is not me.

And all these people came and joined my case. All of a sudden, they were like, oh, we got to let them go. And we're going to give you your money back. I was like, thank you. Thank you. Because you can't molest the clients and continue to work. It just doesn't work. God, good for you.

God damn. But yeah. That's a story. It was crazy. It was quite, you understand, the world was like, what, what? I thought I was never going to work again. Yeah. And I was doing Brooklyn Nine-Nine at the time.

Dude, when the tweets went out, I was on set, and people were like, because of their phones. Like, what? Yeah. And it was like, you know, and that's back when Twitter was really about it, trending. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean, it was, it was hot. It was like, what?

And people were like, and I was like, okay, let's finish the scene. And I was like, uh-oh. And I came home, I said, I don't think we're going to be working anymore. Mm-hmm. I fully expected to get fired. Just like the old spice stuff. Mm-hmm. And they were like, no, no.

And all the people on the set, Sandberg, there's the producers, Dan Gore, Mike Short, they were like, dude, we're with you, man. That's great. That's so good, dude. My taskmates were like, man, somebody has to stand up. Yeah. And I was like, see, and that was the thing. And remember, man, your friends don't mind you being vulnerable.

Go back to. Yeah. But it was the rap star. I called out, I remember Russell Simmons was like, hey, man, get an age in a pass. I was like, what the hell? Nobody gets a pass, man. What are you talking about? It's because you're hanging with all these guys anyway.

And lo and behold, he's over there. He can't even come back in the country or he'll get arrested. Yeah. So these guys, abusers protect abusers, man. They're not my friends. He's not just about my buddies. So you're redefining what it is to be tough through vulnerability. You've got to be powerless.

And it makes you stronger. Hey, man, the universe gives you the power, man, when you let go. it's not holding on you know what I mean when you get to the end of the workout is when you start getting strong that's it when you're done and

can't breathe that's it now okay we got to give him more strength we gotta build his wind yeah we got to make his muscles a little bigger but you got but if you don't need just lift

light weights you gotta go I'm done that's me I'm exhausted. Oh, but, hey, you know what I mean? But imagine the tennis serve. If you're always lightly tennis, you got to go,

yeah, yeah. Something you've got to do it. So the religious trauma that you suffered in the Pentecostal church, how limiting that was, how stifling that was, how shaming that was, you've, part of being tough now is rediscovering your spirituality, your connection with Jesus, with the church. What does that look like now versus then? I love God.

I love the Bible. I love the lessons. I love Jesus, what he stood for. But I also understood that it's man that messes that stuff up. And it's the additions. It's adding. To me, when you talk about God, it's about freedom. but when you don't feel free, they're adding something.

You know what I mean? Like, it's really about who being the best you you can be. But with them, it's always about, well, but you're still not there. You know, like, what I want to say is a lot of times you have to acknowledge your powerlessness. But if someone else tells you you ain't shit, that's not the way to go. You understand what I mean? Sure, yeah.

It's when I say self-discipline, it has to be self. But what the church did, they were the ones that were discipline you. And that never works. Never. If I was to tell you, you can't leave this room, you would be the first thing you want to do

is get out of this room. And you didn't want to do that before I said it. There's a big difference between spirituality and religion. Sure. And religion creates masks that people wear so long they become it. They don't even know another way. And cults take away choices.

That's what they do. They literally, you, if you have no, if there is a place where you feel like, I have no choice, watch out. Because there's always a choice. Always. You can put a gun to my head and the choice is live or die, but it's still my choice. You know what I mean? Yeah. But people don't want to go that far.

Well, no, I had to. And cults and people like that. And very, very structured, really religious mindsets, keep people trapped. And say you don't have any other way. And you don't have choices. We'll make these for you. So me, anything is funny because I can go in churches now, and I feel that, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, nope. And immediately I'm gone.

But I can go to other places and I go, oh, I feel free. I can hear what you're saying. It's all about what I do for myself. And all of a sudden, I'm in. So I've learned not to, but you have to. Do you go to church? I do.

You just found a church that doesn't limit you. Exactly. Exactly. And I still, you know, it's funny. My wife is a pastor. Whoa. My wife has a church. Whoa.

She just started one. It's called L.A. Life Church, and she just gets on it. And she does it online. It's like a YouTube. And she does a thing called Sonic Sunday where she sings. And people come in and play music. And then she gives like a 20 minute just talk about what she's been through. And that's it.

That's it. Hey, church ain't more than that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Who told you it had to be nobody? The rule is, it's like, hey, man, just go tell your story.

That's it. That's church. And I love her. And I love what she does. And I love what it's about because we've been through it all. And I know what this woman's been through. Do you pray? Yes, all the time.

You know, one thing is so amazing. They asked Mother Teresa, like, what is prayer about? And she said, what have I? She said, I, so how do you, you know, how do you pray? And she said, I just listen. I listen to God. He said, well, what does he tell you?

She said, he's listening to. Oh, that's nice. Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice? Because there's no, you don't have to talk to pray. You don't have to, that's for everybody else. But me and God, I'm listening, he's listening. We're communicating.

That's prayer. I'm already, I'm with you, man. And he's like, hey, but son, this is, you know, it's like a, it's like a pipeline that just keeps going. People have this image of, okay, we're praying now. And I just feel like, there are times. I'm like, oh, those moments of revelation, those moments of insight, that's prayer, man. It's prayer. Right.

You know what I mean? When she said that, she said, I just listen. But what do he say? He's listening to. It's funny. There's a quote from my faith tradition, the Baha'i faith, that says, strive day by day that your actions may be beautiful prayers. So that's another way to think about it.

So good. The little actions you do, the holding the door for someone, the smile to someone, the laugh, the pat on the back, the lifting someone up in some way. You know, think about a day with a hundred little prayers. scattered throughout it. Isn't that great? You know, Frederick Douglass, who was a slave and really with one of the leaders in the American Civil Rights Movement and anti-slavery movement, he said, I prayed every day.

He said, but my answers were not, they said, my prayers were not answers until I prayed with my feet. And he escaped. That's prayer too. Yeah. Like you said, those little actions. Yeah. He said, I pray with my feet.

And it's a lot more to prayer than I think what we think it is. You know what I mean? Yeah. We talk a lot on this show about kind of redefining God. And obviously, when God is not an old white man with a beard, I call in my book Sky Daddy, that, you know, God is beauty, music, life, light, connection, just something larger. we can be enthralled to. That's not like a being with superpowers

and how we have to shift our definition of God. But this is beautiful, too, shifting our definition of what prayer is. Remember I told you how I didn't cry. One of the biggest things that ever happened to me. And when you said it's in certain things and all of a sudden you just feel the presence of God, I was watching the movie lean on me.

Okay. Morgan Freeman. Yeah. I was all alone. I was in the house. And I'm like, I've seen this movie probably four or five times. This is when I was in my recovery right after that. And, dude, I couldn't stop crying.

Wait, Morgan Freeman, when Morgan Freeman had, he called the assembly. And all the kids and this was when the school was just really wrecked. And there was gang members and drug dealers and people. And he called them all in assembly. And then he called all these. these miscreants to the stage. And he said, look at these men and women up here.

You will never be bothered by them again. He said, you have all been expurgated. And he kicked them all out of school. And all the students were sitting there. The ones that were good. The ones that wanted to learn. See, I'm remembering this like now. And the gang members

yelled and fought. And he had secured. he already come and brought them all out. And then Morgan stood on that stage alone. And he looked at them kids. He said, now you're going to learn.

And I said, that's how, that's what I needed when I was a kid. You know what I mean? To have a man, someone protect me like this. Someone look after me.

Someone watch me. I wanted to do that, but I had to, I was being two people. I had to code switch and act like, uh, but dude, I said, I want that. That's, but I look, that's God to me now. That pornography, that demon of those monsters. He's like, now they've all been expurgated. Ray, man, it was so deep. It was so deep.

And I couldn't stop crying. And I was like, that's what I got. That movie was powerful, man. It was just like, and he was in trouble and he was doing his thing. And he was like, smoke crack, don't you? You know? And everybody remembers these moments. Yeah.

But this was based on a real person. Yeah. That's what I love. It's a real person. Yeah. Who decided he was going to take everybody on. Yeah. For the sake of these kids that were doing, that wanted.

Yeah, wanted to learn. An education. Yeah. That wanted to be better. that wanted to work on themselves. You understand what I'm saying? Not work on our old community and work on everybody.

The kids just wanted to be better. But you got the environment that constantly is attacking them for wanting to improve themselves. What kind of a world is that? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I'm getting...

No, I love it. I love it. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah. Man, I was not prepared to get this emotional today, but... I had a similar experience. It's so funny. I had forgotten this, but I was sick, and I was working in Chicago a few years back.

And I turned on, like, the TV, which I never do, like stations, you know, channels that have shows, not streaming. And Fiddler on the roof was on. I think I had a fever. And I just cried the whole movie through. I hadn't seen it since I was, like, 12 years old. I was like, and I call my wife, it's like, it's all about love. It's all about love. Life is all about love.

These people, they're trying to find meaning and fall in love. They're just trying to live their lives, but they're being kicked out of their homes. And they're, you know, and I just was, I was just, we had tears pouring on my face. That's God, man. That is, that is God. Dude. So God can, that's it. Can show itself, himself, they self, its beauty through, through art and film.

too. Are you still an artist? Yes. Yes. How do you create? What do you create? I create furniture. Oh, come on. Yeah. You got a furniture line? I do. Okay. I, my line is with Burnhart Design. I'm actually headed to Italy next week. What? I am. I'm going to Salon Del Mogul in Milan to scout out new ideas,

to scout out, man, I love this world. Oh, man. For eight years with my collection is at Burnhart Design. been there for eight years. Sofas, couches, chairs, and different in tables. And I love, love, love interiors. And I learned to, because it's like I love drawing people, but I was like, why don't I just work on what they sit on and what they use and the tables.

And I was like, oh, these shapes are beautiful. And about seven, eight years ago, I got the chance to do that and showed my sketches to the, the creative director of Bernhard, and he was like, these are amazing. Let's make it. I went, are you kidding? And I've been doing that for almost seven, eight years.

That's amazing. And it's great. It's like my own million dollar movie. Like, every time they produce a new, and it sells all over the world, which holds my mind. Like, you're like. People are sitting in your furniture and.

And they don't even know, and I have wallpaper. Yeah. You got wallpaper? I have wallpaper. I have wallpaper. I did a wallpaper line with Aztec. And it won an award.

Best Wallpaper Award? It did. It was wallpaper of the year. The Oscars of wallpaper? These are the things that are my Oscars. You know? I'm like, wow. One of the interior design magazine ranked it as one of the top wallpapers of the year. Oh, yeah.

I'm amazing. And it's an Aztec. You can type it in and just tear proof. I would get a wallpaper with your face on it. It's all over again. It's funny because what I did was draw the people who inspired me and put it up my version of them, Aretha Franklin, Walt Disney, Pele, Muhammad Ali, and it's called iconographic,

is the name of the wall. Wow. Wow. Wow. So it's all these images of all these people that game who I was, that I, because we all as artists, you just take a little bit, I take a little from this guy, a little bit from that, a little bit from Picasso, a little bit from Michael Jackson, a little bit from, you know what I mean? Yeah. And you create a new thing. This is what creativity is.

What do I have to do to get on your fucking wallpaper? No, that'll be iconographic, too. I got to have Rayne Wilson. All right, kind of graphic, too. You got so much going on. You're producing this racing show in New York. What are you doing in Brazil now? I have a huge campaign.

Brazil has probably one of my biggest fan bases of all time. You have to understand it. Billions of people there, and they love me. and I love them. And it's... Whoa, that's nuts. That's great. It's, you know, because everybody hates Chris

is still the number one sitcom in Brazil. Oh, no way. Because we have to understand, it's a 60, 65% Afro-Brazilian population, but the people on TV are mainly white. Right. And they saw everybody hates Chris, and it reflected them.

Mm-hmm. Because here you have a working-class family trying to survive, do their thing. They call me Pieda Chris, which means father of Chris. And I have a huge campaigns going on there. That's amazing.

Starting a supplement company there. And I love Brazil. You have to understand, man. Oh, I've never been. You know, Brazil has huge office fans, too. I don't know. Yes. They want it all, and they're going to get it.

Like, they're cons, like all the Comic-Con. Yeah, yeah. They're gigantic. Whoa. I think I'm going to one in Argentina, I think in December, a Comic-Con down there. So I've never been to, I've been to Columbia, but I haven't been to the rest of South America. Amazing.

Brazil is just- What about as an actor? Anything else going on? Oh, I'm doing a movie. It's all about this team in Alaska. It's a football movie that Maria Manunoz put together. Yeah. I'm playing a coach in that movie.

And then me and Zach King. I'm working on a project together. You know, Zach has been this internet phenomenon. But we have this beautiful fantasy movie called The Agency of Things Unseen that we're doing right now, that we're developing. And then I got a bunch of independent stuff that I'm doing. I get offers, but it's got to be right. Yeah. You know, I don't have to.

I realize there's a lot of things that I just don't have to do. Right. One thing it's all about for me is what is a movie saying? What is it about? Sure. You know what I mean? I'm still waiting for white chicks, too. I can't wait for that.

Now, white chicks went through a whole thing, right? So it's super popular, and then it was very, like, un-PC. Oh, yeah. And now it's coming back around. And it's like, oh, wait a minute. It's actually, it was actually decades ahead of its time and its cultural criticism. Yes. Tell us about white chicks.

Well, that's the thing. The New York Times put out a thing on the 20th anniversary. of white chicks, which was crazy because it was 2004 and they were like, we got it wrong. This is the movie of the last 20 years. Like white chicks got it right. Yeah. Whereas we were panned, it was ridiculous.

But remember, it was pre-Cardashian, pre-everything. All this, reality TV and what it is now and black and white relations and how it worked, you could address these things freely. Yeah. And it's refreshing. And now you have to stand, too. Every year, a young man or woman turns 12 or 13,

and they sit and they watch white chicks. And they go, oh! Like the bomb goes, pooh! You know, it's like, what is this? Yeah. And they become fans for life. So, and that's been happening for 20 years. You have to say, my 21-year-old daughter was one-year-old,

she was one on the set. Uh-huh. She went to college, and they were on the roof last summer watching white chicks. Oh, damn. She's like, oh, my God. I come out of the thing in a speedo, and my daughter's like, and they're like, that's your dad, right? She's like, no.

But if you don't embarrass your kids, you're not doing it right, you know what I mean? And if folks want to see you and me in a movie together, they can watch badass by Mario Van Peebles. That was 22 years ago, before the office, before Brooklyn Nine-N-N-N-N-N-9. Yeah, before white things. I remember meeting you. I remember hanging with you in the parking lot in downtown L.A. when we were shooting that movie.

Remember that. You know, such a great movie about a seminal chapter in Black American history, Melvin Van Peebles shooting Sweet, Sweet Backs, Badass Song, which we were saying not only the first black exploitation film wasn't quite a black exploitation film, but ushered forward black exploitation, but one of the first like independent film,

that showed that you could make money as an independent film. And it's about the making of that film. That was such a blast. I'm really proud of that movie. I don't know that many people get to see it, but check out badass. You got to check it out. Mario Van People's directed and starred as his father.

Yeah, played his father. Which was unreal. Neil Long, you, David Allen, Greer. It was a great cast. Great cast, dude. And I was brand new. I had an opera in it. I know.

It was great. Terry, how would you define the word soul? Soul is a feeling. Okay. Soul is that feeling when you are just connecting on every level with whatever you're interacting with. That's how I feel. That's just soul like, you can eat something that has soul. You can hear something that has soul.

You can be with somebody who has soul, but you're just connected. That's my definition. Beautiful. Terry, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing your heart and your wisdom. And this has been a beautiful conversation. I've learned so much. Thank you. God bless you. Hey, Ray, and I've got to tell you, I'm just so proud of you, man. I mean, I've been following you ever since we worked on that film. And I was like, wow, look at this man. Look at you. I'm just, I'm proud and honored, you know, to know you and to see just what a great person you are and you're getting better every day. And what can I think. say, man. We did our soul pancake years ago. Yeah, that's right. You were part of this big soul pancake event we put on. And you're always willing to do that. You're always willing like, hey, Terry Cruz, will you come down to this event when we were kids in mental health and and trying to make the world a better place? Like, I'm there. I got you. I'm there. See, that's, but that's the thing, man.

That's, to me, that's the ministry. That's how you do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? You got a, giving is how you get. Your actions are beautiful prayers. I love you, man. Thanks, I love you, too. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

All right. All right. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.