Actor Terrence Howard has initiated a legal action against a prominent Hollywood talent agency. The NAACP Award winner claims the agency failed to prioritize his best interests during his role on the successful Fox series “Empire.”
Howard is suing the Creative Artists Agency LLC for breach of fiduciary duty, filing his claim in a Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, Dec. 9.
He asserts that the agency’s dual representation of both him and the show’s producer, Lee Daniels, created a conflict of interest. On the show, for six seasons, he played Lucious Lyons, a sinister music mogul whose empire was supported by his dysfunctional family. The show was one of the top shows on television from 2015 to 2020.
The Cleveland native contends that he was deprived of the competitive compensation typically accorded to male leads of popular shows. The agency neglected to advocate on his behalf for a salary commensurate with that of comparable white actors in the industry, Howard claims.
He said at a press conference on Friday, that he was never given accurate information regarding what salary he should expect in negotiations from his agents. CAA agents led him to believe that they were negotiating his contract in a way that would result in compensation comparable to figures like Kevin Spacey in “House of Cards” or Jon Hamm in “Mad Men.”
“Not only did it become abundantly clear that his agents led him on a path to rely on information that was misleading, he discovered that this was the result of the fact that CAA was not acting in his best interest, but in the interest of their own financial benefit as well as the interest of the Production Companies and the producers, Daniels and Strong,” Howard’s lawsuit says, according to Variety.
Terrence Howard is suing Creative Artists Agency over his salary for the hit TV show “Empire”. Howard says, “I trusted CAA to look after me and they looked after themselves.” You can hear more about this @knxnews pic.twitter.com/YA482Vj3gs
— Margaret Carrero (@KNXmargaret) December 8, 2023
CAA implemented package deals, bundling multiple clients’ salaries without prioritizing Terrence Howard as a standalone star. This practice, involving talent agencies receiving packaging fees on TV series, was basically banned after a nearly two-year battle led by the Writers Guild of America against Hollywood’s major agencies.
“Under normal circumstances,” the complaint continued, “Had CAA not been the packaging agent, and had CAA not been concurrently representing the Production Companies, where their sole financial interest would have been the 10% fee from the compensation received by Howard, they would have most certainly fought for Howard in a manner that most producers are accustomed to seeing CAA agents engage in.”
Fans immediately took up arms and blamed Daniels. “Lee Daniels don’t like to pay nobody does it,” one person said in Instagram. “He owes Damon dash, Mo’Nique, and Terrance Howard.”
Others were shocked that the agency did him dirty. “But you are his agent my gawd! This man has been done wrong so much,” a comment read. Another said, “This seems to be a recurring theme, if true, he needs to sue everyone involved….. Twice!” Some just wanted justice for the star, writing, “Run him his coins.”
According to the star, “Empire” at one point had as many viewers each week as another hit show, with a predominantly white cast, “Big Bang Theory.” However, his pay was substantially less than that show’s lead, Jim Parsons.
“I can’t say for certain this was a racial issue, but I can’t imagine another counterpart – a white counterpart – with the same accolades, name recognition and numbers that I had, receiving the lowball pay that I was receiving,” Howard said, according to Rolling Stone.
The “Best Man” stand-out said that he really didn’t want to believe he was being jerked and also didn’t want to be a proverbial squeaky wheel.
“I drank the Kool-Aid. I believed that I was going to get paid, or that I was getting compensated properly, but I wasn’t,” Howard noted. “I just didn’t want to piss off CAA and Fox. They’re big companies to go to war against.”
He added, he just could not stay quiet any longer. “But sooner or later you’ve got to stand up, because they’re just trampling over the rights of the artists,” he added.
CAA reportedly declined to comment on the lawsuit for which Howard has hired Mississippi attorney Carlos Moore to defend him. But this isn’t the first time he’s raised an issue about his pay.
One commentator said, “He always getting got. Didn’t forget iron man.” After playing in the 2008 film, Howard claims producers offered, “one-eighth of what we contractually had for you because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.”
In 2020, the beloved entertainer sued 20th Century Fox Film for allegedly being underpaid royalty fees for the use of his name and likeness on merchandise. He claimed that the “Empire” logo was created by using the likeness of his “Hustle & Flow” character, Tyler DJay Moran.
