Amidst his legal battle with his former talent agency, actor Terrence Howard is dropping one of his other lawsuits to focus on his action against CAA.
Without providing any explanation, Howard has ceased his lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, now owned by Disney, regarding alleged unpaid compensation for using his image from the film “Hustle & Flow” to promote the TV series “Empire.”
About Howard’s Legal Battles
The lawsuit involving Fox’s use of his image was recently mentioned on April 8 on Daphne Wynn’s YouTube channel, “Straight Talk with Daphne Phaneē,” where she interviewed him with his now-viral hairdo that surprised the internet.
However, circumstances have swiftly changed since that interview.
As of April 23, the Memphis actor has abruptly dropped his image lawsuit, against which Fox has defended itself by stating that Howard consented to use of the photos for promotional purposes, as reported by Audacy.
“They took that [photo], flipped it, and put it on everything. Made a trademark of it, sold it around the world — didn’t ask my permission,” Howard said previously on the YouTube show. “That image is worth $100 million at least for how much money that they made from it.”
Howard, who filed the lawsuit back in October 2020, alleges CAA lowballed him on his salary for “Empire” while securing much higher pay for actors on shows with lower viewership.
Howard claims he earned $325,000 per episode at his peak on “Empire,” a show that aired from 2015 to 2020. He portrayed the main character, hip-hop music mogul Lucious Lyon, throughout the six seasons of the Fox drama.
“[CAA] represented me, they also represented some of the people from ‘Big Bang Theory,’” he said on “Straight Talk.” “[CAA] also did the deal with Fox, my show was with Fox, the people on ‘Big Bang Theory’ was with Fox.”
“We had 28 million viewers, [‘Big Bang’] had 11 million viewers,” presenting numbers that are not reflected in the public record. “[The ‘Big Bang’ cast] was getting $2 million, damn near $3 million an episoe. Those white kids, they had no name recognition, no Oscar nominations, none of that.”
Howard added, “They owe me over $120 million based on what would’ve been paid to white counterparts,” and he has already spent about $4 million in legal fees to defend himself against his tax evasion case, for which he was ordered to pay $1 million, The Daily Beast reported.
In the podcast, Howard discussed his persistent desire to retire from acting, initially announcing it in 2019 and reaffirming it in 2022, yet he has appeared on screen a few times recently, including in “Shirley” this year, 2024.
