Terry Crews says that those who abuse should not be allowed to 'go back to work'
Terry Crews has said that those who have abused others in the workplace shouldn’t be allowed to ‘go back to work’.
Speaking at a panel event for the Teen Vogue Summit in Los Angeles, he said that they need to be made ‘accountable’ for their actions.
Crews accused Adam Venit, an agent for his former representation WME, who has now retired, of groping him at a Hollywood party in 2016.
In September, Crews said that he had accepted an apology from Venit over the alleged incident.
“I think as men, what we need to do is to say, ‘We’re sorry.’ Then we need to concede, and then we need to be accountable,” Crews said (via THR).
“The person who molested me in 2016, I had already forgiven him. That wasn’t the point. The point was like, ‘Wait, wait, you’re telling me you can just do it? You’re telling me, wait, it’s okay? You’re not going to do anything?’ He’s like, ‘No, I said I was sorry.’
“I said, ‘But you’re not going to correct this? I’m giving you guys millions of dollars and you’re going to sit here and say, ‘Well, Terry, you’re less of a human being right now. Just a little bit less. Just say it.’ I’m, like, ‘I’m not saying that.’”
“You can’t ignore me, I’m standing right here,” he went on. “All of a sudden you’re an activist. ‘Hey, who does he think he is, standing here like you’re a human being or something?’ Yeah, I am. And all I did, this was not waving flags, this was not shooting guns in the air, this was like, ‘No, no, no, you’re not going to do that.’
“No, he can’t go back to work. No. He can’t go back to work and do that. No man, woman, child — you cannot molest anybody and go back to work.”
Crews parted with the WME agency in November, 2017, and sued both Venit and WME in December.
They settled a lawsuit in September this year.
Crews went on to admit that prior to the events of the #MeToo movement, he was part of Hollywood’s culture of ‘toxic masculinity’.
“I’ve been involved in some of the most competitive, toxic environments you could probably ever be in. I mean, it’s really bad. But I was also a card-carrying member. I’m guilty,” he said.
“Toxic masculinity wants you to do what I say. It’s domination. And I was part of that. My daughter’s here, and I don’t want to put her on the spot because she’s so beautiful, but I’m telling you she grew up in a different household, because my oldest daughter is 32, and I remember yelling, screaming, anger, domination. It had to be my way or the highway.
“Men need to concede. I, Terry Crews, had to concede. I had to say, ‘I got this wrong. I didn’t do it right.’ I had to correct. I had to make sure it’s not only apologies; it’s about accountability. I had to be accountable to my family, to my wife, to people that I did wrong in the past.”
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