CELEBRITY
Terrence Howard Sues CAA Over Low ‘Empire’ Pay, Alleging Racism
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Terrence Howard on Friday announced he is suing his former agency CAA over allegedly failing to represent his financial interests during his time on the hit Fox series Empire, and his attorneys say racism is to blame.
“We need accountability. We need access. We need to be able to share in the profits, Howard said at a press conference Friday at The Cochran Firm.
Howard and his attorneys say CAA entered into a packaging deal with the show’s creators Danny Strong and Lee Daniels and production company Imagine Entertainment, cheating him out of “a much higher salary given the success of the show.”
Howard starred as Machiavellian music mogul Lucious Lyon alongside co-star Taraij P. Henson’s Cookie Lyon. In addition to his starring role, Howard says his work on music and scripts contributed to the show’s success.
I trusted CAA to look after me, and they looked after themselves, Howard said. Although he says he knew CAA was representing multiple parties involved in the show, he believed that there was so much money that everybody would share and everything would work out fine.”
He now says it didn’t work out that way. Howard says he was paid $350,000 per episode beginning in the show’s highly-rated second season, but that CAA made no effort to get him compensated for his behind-the-scenes work.
He said he “never received the compensation as a producer or any of those things that are immediately given or asked for by agents of white actors.”
Attorney Carlos Moore declared that discovery will show this was racism.
Howard left CAA in 2019, and in 2021 the Writers Guild of America successfully fought the agencies’ packaging practices. Howard is currently represented by Independent Artists Group.
He said that taking legal action against CAA may be a death blow for his career, and said it was difficult for him to find a lawyer willing to take his case.
“Theres two types of lawyers in LA, two types of lawyers pretty much in the world,” Howard said. “Those that work for Disney, or those that want to work for Disney. The conflicts of interest were there.”
TMX contributed to this article.
