“Empire” star Terrence Howard is suing CAA for breach of fiduciary responsibility, saying the expertise company allegedly requested him to take a decrease wage for the favored present. He outlined his claims at a Friday press convention.
Howard performed music mogul Lucious Lyon for six seasons of the Fox drama, produced by Think about Leisure and what was then twentieth Century Fox TV. He claims that as a result of CAA additionally represented the producers of “Empire” in a bundle deal that was profitable for the company. As such, Howard’s authorized technique asserts, the company didn’t act in his greatest curiosity by pushing for the next wage as a result of it had a revenue participation stake via its bundle, so CAA had an curiosity in maximizing the whole revenue that twentieth TV realized on the collection. Since 2020, the observe of expertise businesses receiving packaging charges on TV collection was basically banned after the Writers Guild of America waged a virtually two-year battle in opposition to the Hollywood’s largest businesses to reform the decades-old observe.
Howard additionally asserted that the scenario he skilled on “Empire” additionally has racial overtones.
“I can’t say for sure this was a racial subject, however I can’t think about one other counterpart – a white counterpart – with the identical accolades, title recognition and numbers that I had, receiving the lowball pay that I used to be receiving,” he informed Rolling Stone after the press convention.
“I drank the Kool-Help. I believed that I used to be going to receives a commission, or that I used to be getting compensated correctly, however I wasn’t. I simply didn’t wish to piss off CAA and Fox. They’re large firms to go to struggle in opposition to. However in the end you’ve received to face up, as a result of they’re simply trampling over the rights of the artists,” he mentioned to Rolling Stone.
Howard says that although “Empire” finally amassed extra viewers than “Huge Bang Idea,” he was being paid lower than the sitcom’s star Jim Parsons. His pay began at $125,000 and topped out at $325,000 per episode, he mentioned.
The press convention was held on the Los Angeles places of work of the Cochran Agency, whose attorneys James Bryan and Brian Dunn are representing Howard together with Carlos Moore of the Carlos Moore Legislation Group.
