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Terry Crews Apologizes to LGBT Folks After Chat With Stephanie Beatriz
The actor had been tweeting how children need different gendered parents.
Actor Terry Crews ruffled feathers last week when he began a series of tweets insisting children need both male and female parents or role models in order to become whole as a person.
“I don’t believe that either fatherhood or motherhood can be dismissed or deemed unnecessary from a persons [sic] life. That’s all. No matter if the parents are same sex, heterosexual, or single parent households,” read one of the tweets.
While he did apologize relatively quickly for one tweet, claiming kids who only have a strong relationship with one gender of parent will be “severely malnourished,” which had been in defense of an earlier tweet:
\u201c@jakesherondale @YouTube I\u2019ve reiterated many times that same sex couples and single parents can successfully raise a child. But I believe paternal AND maternal love are like vitamins and minerals to humanity. No matter where you get that paternal and maternal love. MY purpose is to give paternal love.\u201d— Terry Crews (@Terry Crews) 1551449682
But for the most part, Crews spent the past week repeatedly dismissing the hurt and outrage of people in the LGBTQ community, as well as those supporting single parents, while uplifting voices that were affirming his stance.
However, on Tuesday, Crews admitted that fellow Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz, who is openly bisexual, sat down with him and explained why people were upset, and hopefully why what he said was wrong.
“Had a great talk with @iamstephbeatz this morning on set that shed a lot of light on why the LGBTQ community were hurt by my comments,” he tweeted.
“I want to apologize for anyone who was triggered or felt targeted. I was speaking out of my very personal experiences as a Black Father.”
\u201cHad a great talk with @iamstephbeatz this morning on set that shed a lot of light on why the LBGTQ community were hurt by my comments.\n\nI want to apologize for anyone who was triggered or felt targeted. I was speaking out of my very personal experiences as a Black Father.\u201d— Terry Crews (@Terry Crews) 1551819850
\u201cAnd while these experiences for me are very true and real, these can differ greatly from the experiences of others. Being able to sit with @iamstephbeatz gave me a perspective I had not seen before.\u201d— Terry Crews (@Terry Crews) 1551819850
\u201cI believe men need to be more vulnerable in order to fix the many problems that we created and this starts with me. We don\u2019t always have to agree, but we must always listen.\n\nI love every person on earth, and want to see every man, woman and child flourish.\u201d— Terry Crews (@Terry Crews) 1551819850
Phew. While it sounds like Crews isn’t entirely swayed off of his position yet, it shows he’s listened, and hopefully the standoff and argumentativeness between him and the people who were upset by his comments has come to a close for now.
And we’re definitely grateful Beatriz took the time to have a tough conversation with a friend about something that impacted the whole community. It's never easy to do, but stepping up and having those talks can go a long way.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
