It’s safe to say that Lee Daniels will not be offering Sean Penn a guest role on his hit show Empire, not that the actor would even consider such a thing because he is taking Daniels to task for falsely accusing him of domestic abuse.
It all started when Daniels expressed empathy while chatting to The Hollywood Reporter about his deliciously controversial lead star, Terrence Howard – who consistently dominates the headlines with his bad boy antics which almost always involves the women he has supposedly terrorized.
That being said, Daniels seems to think that Howard is being bullied by the press for doing the exact same thing his famous white counterparts have done without being relentlessly haunted by naysayers – as if that makes it okay. In any case, the Empire co-creator, couldn’t resist sticking up for Howard which is to be expected but things got explicitly weird when he referenced similar actions of two industry heavyweights. “That poor boy”. “Terrence ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some f—-in’ demon”. “That’s a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America”.
Besides the fact that Daniels’ comment is highly offensive given the fact that he is attempting to make the case that Howard is somehow the victim of racial profiling when it comes to being forced to publicly reconcile his actions, he also made the mistake of calling out an iconic actor who passed away decades ago, and another actor who is still alive and plans on suing him for defamation.
Penn filed a complaint on Tuesday and is seeking $10 million dollars – apparently that’s how much it will take to clear his now slandered reputation. Madonna’s ex-hubby definitely didn’t steer away from the wild side back in the day. He weathered his fair amount of arrests and controversy but unlike Howard, who readily admitted to Rolling Stone a few weeks ago that he “slapped” his first wife Lori McCommas – Penn has never been arrested or convicted for physically abusing any of his ex-wives.
But the worst part of this latest scandal has to be the smug way Daniels depicts Howard as the lone soldier getting pummeled with bullets incessantly for no good reason at all. And of course the idea that high-profile men also beat up their spouses with no consequence so the same courtesy should be extended to a man who has repeatedly done so is beyond nauseating and places a big black dot on Daniels’ character.
Empire may be the Show of the Year – but the man behind it needs to start giving his own character a major revision.
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