Terrence Howard is going to war with the second largest talent agency on planet earth, Creative Artist Agency known for their star-studded roster of directors such as Antoine Fuqua, Jordan Peele, J.J. Abram, Ron Howard, Ava Duvernay, Steven Spielberg. It also represents actors like Lupita Nyong’o, Alec Baldwin, Morgan Freemen, Evan Rachel Wood, Jamie Fox, Brad Pitt and grieving actresses Taraji Henson who also claim racist standards at the company.

CAA even partners with presidents like Joe Biden to promote public policy and standardize public relations.

Yet the agency who has recently sold a majority of its stake to French billionaire Francois Pinault, is in more hot water than ever.

Howard who has stared in dozens of CAA affiliated works including Hustle & Flow, Iron Man, and Empire claims that he was paid less than half a million per episode of the Fox TV series “Empire” despite netting in an average 18 million viewers per episode. Empire is also said to have made nearly $20 million in ad revenue alone within the first season, yet Howard and Taraji P Henson alike were paid less than casting extras on white cast television shows with far less viewership.

The actor has even partnered with the famed Cochran Law Firm to file his suit with the Los Angeles superior court.

“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. I just didn’t want to piss off CAA and Fox. They’re big companies to go to war against. But sooner or later you’ve got to stand up, because they’re just trampling over the rights of the artists.” Howard reiterated in a recent interview.

2023 was a rough year for CAA. After being stymied for 5 months due the SAG-AFTRA and writers guild strikes, the company still saw itself give substantial raises to the leadership team of Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane and Richard Lovett all netting salaries of $2.5 million annually despite actors, directors, and writers working under them are unable to afford to live in the California area. Additionally, the company saw itself lose hundreds of millions of dollars due to the strike.

Following the 2022 acquisition of its smaller rival, ICM Partners, CAA hoped to increase production but with the strike created a crisis during a time that the company couldn’t afford to take any losses. In fact latest reports estimate that CAA laid off over 320 staff members and cut salaries of heads of small production teams to remain in the green (profit margin) for the year.

“Discovery will show that this was racism,” said Carlos Moore, a lawyer representing the actor. “You won’t find in discovery that a white actor — Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-nominated — was treated like that.” said Carlos Moore of the Cochran Law Firm.

Howard’s attorney James Bryant said that “CAA simply told Howard, ‘We’re not going to take the 10 percent agency fee this time because we packaged things together.’ In reality, it was a terrible thing because they had no incentive to fight for this man when he demanded to have his salary negotiated comparable to every other lead white actor out there.”

Howard’s legal team is seeking back pay for seasons of the internationally popular TV show Empire for which he was not properly compensated for as well as recouping the damages for the misleading and what seems to be brazenly unfair management or “packaging” fees charged to Mr. Howard by CAA and of course emotional damages for the undue stress the actor was forced to endure at the hands of the mega-conglomerate.

–Barrington Williams, B1Daily