There have been plenty of celebrities who’ve said cringeworthy things about domestic violence in light of the Ray Rice video that surfaced this week, but actor Terry Crews isn’t one of them. The start of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" opened up to "Entertainment Tonight" about growing up in a household where his father regularly beat his mother:
When I saw the video, I was immediately taken back to my childhood," he said. "This is the way I grew up. I used to watch this happen over and over again. It was a post-traumatic-stress experience for me. I used to watch my father hit my mother in the face and watch her go down and there was some things that just affected me more than I don’t think anyone could realize.
Crews also called out the NFL’s culture of violence.
I mean it’s weird because you think of how this cult pact works and there are always ways to get back in–especially in the NFL. I’ve seen major transgressions done and people still play. The NFL culture, the sports culture, has decided that they are more valuable than women.
He continued:
I’ve heard people laugh about keeping their pimp-hand strong and keeping her in control so that she knows her place. But think about how evil that is for one man to think that he’s actually more valuable than a woman, because as a human being your worth is immeasurable.
Read more at The Root.