Valuetainment - March 19, 2026


“You Let Them Call YOU” - Terrence Howard REVEALS Bill Cosby Advice After BRUTAL Cosby Show Snub


Episode Stats

Length

13 minutes

Words per Minute

184.37834

Word Count

2,525

Sentence Count

165

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Actor Ron Stallworth joins Jemele to discuss his life and career in Hollywood. He talks about growing up in a religious household and how he got his start in the entertainment industry. He also shares the story of how he was cut out of the Cosby Show at the age of 16.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.080 Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.
00:00:04.820 I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community.
00:00:07.960 Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime.
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00:00:30.000 So your mom inspired you to get into the movie business?
00:00:32.640 Yeah.
00:00:33.200 And how did that happen?
00:00:34.180 Because she wanted to be an actress,
00:00:35.800 and I thought if I became an actor, I would get her affection.
00:00:39.400 Because she doted over my younger brother Antonio
00:00:42.180 and wanted him to be an actor,
00:00:44.040 so I thought if I became an actor,
00:00:46.080 I would get that love from her.
00:00:49.740 What did Antonio end up doing?
00:00:51.140 He's a contractor now.
00:00:52.600 He's a contractor?
00:00:53.260 Yeah, no, it's practicing witness.
00:00:55.780 Practicing witness.
00:00:56.540 Yeah, he's...
00:00:57.460 Good for him.
00:00:58.180 He's maintained.
00:00:59.880 Good relationship, you guys.
00:01:01.200 Yeah, we have a great relationship.
00:01:03.300 Are 11 of you guys all close?
00:01:05.520 Most of us are.
00:01:06.780 Great.
00:01:08.600 There's a lot of communication, but then the younger ones are kind of getting their own thing out there.
00:01:14.820 I don't have as much in common with my brothers anymore because I'm not a witness.
00:01:19.620 And they're still trying to, you know, proselytize in a way.
00:01:25.220 And I'm trying to open their eyes to, let's look at some of the statistics, some of the facts, you know, from the scriptures.
00:01:33.840 If every word is supposed to be the word of God, if you find one mistake in there, then you've got to throw the entire thing out.
00:01:41.780 You have the entire things becomes questionable.
00:01:44.840 And I, like I said, I'm not questioning the divinity of God, but I do question how we've been taught in our belief systems.
00:01:52.760 I think our belief systems, it's time to raise them and take the allegories that we can.
00:01:58.360 But we need to start basing things on actual fact.
00:02:02.160 So you going into Hollywood, at what age did you get the first job?
00:02:06.720 How did you get into it?
00:02:07.780 First job I got was on The Cosby Show.
00:02:10.800 I went to Barry Moss's casting agency because my brother Antonio was invited to come in there.
00:02:18.300 And then he couldn't go because he was in Cleveland.
00:02:20.400 and I was in New York at the time, and I went in there,
00:02:23.260 and I got the job on the Cosby Show.
00:02:24.900 Is that it, Ron?
00:02:26.080 No, that's Living Single.
00:02:27.180 No, that was Living Single.
00:02:28.160 They cut me out of the show.
00:02:30.240 Oh, they cut you out of the show?
00:02:32.000 Did they really?
00:02:32.700 Like, there's no scenes of you in it?
00:02:34.540 They cut me out of the show because I was just a friend of Theo.
00:02:37.800 I was playing ping pong and all of that, and I was so hurt by it.
00:02:41.700 And I called my great-grandmother, Minnie Gentry,
00:02:44.380 who was an actress who had been on the Cosby Show,
00:02:46.860 and I asked her, I said, I feel like I need to go talk to Cosby
00:02:50.040 because Cosby had told me that he liked us together
00:02:52.880 and I hadn't talked to Barry Moss in three weeks or whatever.
00:02:56.720 And so I went up to Cosby's room,
00:03:00.140 went to the Kauffman Astoria Queens, Kauffman Astoria Studios,
00:03:05.500 and had made friends with everybody inside of the lobby, you know.
00:03:09.300 So they let me in thinking I was coming in.
00:03:12.000 And I waited outside of Cosby's door and I said to him,
00:03:15.620 when he showed up, he was like, hey, what are you doing?
00:03:18.500 And I was like, I'd just love to talk to you for a minute.
00:03:20.800 And he invited me into his room, and he said, so what's on your mind?
00:03:24.960 I said, I watched the show last night.
00:03:27.180 And he was like, good, good, good.
00:03:29.280 He said, I said, but they cut me out of it.
00:03:34.480 He was like, yeah, it happens.
00:03:36.380 Yeah, it happens.
00:03:37.240 I was like, but nobody told me that it was going to happen.
00:03:40.920 He was like, you know, your agent should have told you.
00:03:43.560 I was like, oh, I don't have an agent.
00:03:44.940 He was like, oh, okay.
00:03:46.880 I was like, but, well, you said that you liked us together
00:03:50.400 and you were going to have me back.
00:03:51.480 I haven't heard anything from anybody.
00:03:52.900 And he took a minute and looked at me.
00:03:56.520 And he was like, well, you know, it could happen, you know,
00:04:00.640 but it also can't happen.
00:04:03.120 And I'm like, well, you know, what I did is I told everybody at my school
00:04:08.260 that I was going to be on the show.
00:04:09.540 I was in college at Pratt Institute, and I had them come and watch the show,
00:04:15.160 And then I wasn't there, and I was embarrassed, and he said, well, in this business, you learn you don't tell somebody you're in something.
00:04:22.440 You let somebody call you and tell you they saw you.
00:04:27.240 And then he said to me, he said, but that's just how this business is.
00:04:32.240 And I said, well, you know what?
00:04:34.560 I'm a man just like you.
00:04:35.900 Here's this 19-year-old boy that takes another moment at Disneyland.
00:04:40.320 I said, I'm a man just like you.
00:04:41.700 I eat piss and I crap, but the way you're talking to me feels like I'm an insignificant worm, you know.
00:04:48.140 You said that.
00:04:48.620 Yeah, I said it.
00:04:49.360 And how old are you at that?
00:04:50.020 I'm 19.
00:04:51.320 I'm 19.
00:04:52.700 And I never told anybody about this conversation.
00:04:55.960 And I said, but if this is how the business is, I don't think I want to be a part of it.
00:05:00.180 And he said, if that's a choice you got to make.
00:05:02.220 Well, I leave there, and Barry Moss will never take my call again.
00:05:07.080 And then maybe seven years later, I bump into Malcolm Jamal Warner on a set and he's like, he was like, yo, I heard about you having a conversation with Bill Cosby and I was completely in the wrong. I didn't get disrespectful with him, but I was in the wrong because I should have, I needed to have an agent. I need, I didn't need to come.
00:05:27.100 So you're taking responsibility.
00:05:28.640 Oh, I did that.
00:05:29.760 I did that.
00:05:30.500 I did.
00:05:31.240 There's so, but Cosby, you know, years later he called me and because the rumor had got out there, you know, thinking that I had been blackballed because of Cosby.
00:05:42.200 And he said, I really would love for you to go on the radio and tell them that I didn't do this.
00:05:46.820 And I was like, I don't know if you did or didn't, but you weren't in the wrong that time.
00:05:50.840 You know, same thing happened with me and Joe Silver.
00:05:53.840 I get, I'm doing the brave one.
00:05:55.780 and we were at the Venice Film Festival
00:05:58.360 and some reporter out of nowhere gaslights me.
00:06:04.160 And he says to me, he says,
00:06:07.860 he's like, why isn't your name above the titles with Jody?
00:06:11.120 And I'm sitting there thinking,
00:06:12.520 yeah, why isn't my name above the titles with Jody?
00:06:14.800 So I started making calls as if that was my right.
00:06:19.760 And it wasn't.
00:06:20.780 And then Joel Silver came and had a conversation with me.
00:06:24.040 He's like, the reason your name isn't above the titles is because you're not the star of this thing.
00:06:29.520 It's Jody.
00:06:30.240 And if you win, if you get nominated for an Oscar, it's going to be for supporting actor.
00:06:34.660 It's not going to be for best actor.
00:06:36.640 And I was like, okay, thank you for telling me that.
00:06:38.660 Now I understand.
00:06:39.960 But you have to remember, I'm a man just like you.
00:06:42.820 And if you ever talk to me in that way again, I'm going to knock your teeth out your mouth.
00:06:46.540 You said that.
00:06:47.100 This is what I said.
00:06:48.000 And then I have to fly back on a private flight with him.
00:06:54.040 and susan and susan downey is his producing partner on that and then maybe eight months later
00:07:06.260 i lose iron man and i'm sure that all of those things played their part but i got gaslit
00:07:13.940 he did the right thing in coming and talking to me but i responded in this aggressive manner
00:07:20.560 instead of being cool about and understanding that, you know,
00:07:26.280 you get what's supposed to come to you.
00:07:28.300 It's nothing to admit to, though.
00:07:29.280 Oh, my God.
00:07:29.580 You're in a business where it's image.
00:07:31.660 So how could you have done it differently?
00:07:36.640 I would have just let it pass with him asking, you know,
00:07:40.740 shouldn't you be above the titles?
00:07:42.240 Well, if I should be above the titles, I would be.
00:07:44.680 You know, you are where you're supposed to be.
00:07:47.140 Now I understand that.
00:07:48.780 Shouldn't you be with that girl right there?
00:07:50.440 Yeah, if that was my girl, should I wither in despair because a woman be so fair?
00:07:54.820 Is she fair to me?
00:07:56.180 A girl may seem as fine as can be, the most beautiful thing you ever did see,
00:07:59.760 but if she ain't mine, what the F I care how fair she be.
00:08:03.700 That position above the title wasn't mine.
00:08:07.240 I didn't need it.
00:08:08.900 How important is it in Hollywood?
00:08:11.260 How often do actors say, wait a minute, why am I number two?
00:08:13.880 I was number one.
00:08:14.800 Is it a very important thing too?
00:08:16.280 Yeah, well, it shows, it's still the classes.
00:08:19.560 You know, I'm above this.
00:08:20.860 I'm below this.
00:08:22.100 You know, I'm, and right now, I don't care where I'm at on the call list.
00:08:27.580 I just want to perform the best that I possibly can.
00:08:31.480 I've grown up now, but the mistakes I made back then, oh, my God.
00:08:36.900 I'm the one that put myself in the doghouse.
00:08:39.900 Other people didn't do.
00:08:41.200 There was a game.
00:08:42.100 There's a way you, there's procedures to the game.
00:08:45.620 If you don't follow the procedures, you get out of it.
00:08:48.200 And I did not know how to control my anger at the time.
00:08:52.340 I didn't know how to control my mouth.
00:08:55.180 You know, I kept getting in my own way.
00:08:57.260 When we were doing this movie Boycott and Jeffrey Wright is sitting there, we're playing chess with each other right before he's got to go in.
00:09:08.560 And I've got my pawns, three pawns set up here, but I haven't been able to castle.
00:09:15.080 I'm trying to castle, but I can't get around there.
00:09:18.060 and I've got a bishop that's still blocking me from being able to castle.
00:09:23.440 And he dropped his rook down and, you know, checkmated me.
00:09:29.720 And he said, right there is your biggest problem.
00:09:32.540 You won't get out of your own way.
00:09:34.780 He said, the cameraman was watching you,
00:09:37.760 and he's seeing you from this angle, and he looks good like this,
00:09:41.260 and he could do this, that, and the other.
00:09:43.520 But he said, but you won't do it because you won't get out of your own way.
00:09:47.640 And getting out of my way then was I had a gold ring that I was determined to keep on.
00:09:52.520 And I was like, I always wear this, and it's not the character.
00:09:56.220 I was like, but I always wear this, and da-da-da-da-da.
00:09:59.560 And I was in my own way about something that was unimportant.
00:10:06.020 I had forgotten.
00:10:07.940 You know, and you grow up, and you listen.
00:10:10.260 I had a meeting with Denzel once, and he told me, he was like, look at your hands, man.
00:10:16.180 You're always like this.
00:10:17.640 Your fists are all balled up.
00:10:20.080 They said, and all these producers want to do is they're trying to open your hand
00:10:22.940 so they can put money in it, but you won't do it.
00:10:26.480 You keep your hands all tight like this, and you're blowing it.
00:10:33.160 And this is 20 years ago.
00:10:34.800 Holy moly, what kind of advice.
00:10:38.480 So 20 years ago, were you at your, were you come, 20 years ago would be what, 19, no?
00:10:44.680 2006 or 20 years ago it was right before it was maybe about 20 28 20 it was right before i
00:10:53.040 did hustle and flow it was right before because i ended up going back into the chitlin circuit i
00:10:59.420 was no longer being supported by the studios again you know because i was so impressed happened
00:11:04.900 how many times at least eight times i've had a number of opportunities and you know but my
00:11:11.280 aggression you know my need to be a man you're gonna you ain't gonna talk to me like that
00:11:16.320 you know instead of learning how to diffuse and to walk away and to smile okay this isn't your day
00:11:23.620 or this isn't my road right now who plays a role in in in a in an actor that obviously is very
00:11:32.240 talented obviously is an a lister obviously it's a guy that can get up there and make the few hundred
00:11:38.540 million, who typically plays the role of saying, hey, listen, let's pump the brakes. Who's having
00:11:44.180 a tough con? Was your manager somebody that knew how to manage you? They didn't. Well, the people
00:11:50.000 that were trying to manage me at the time were Benny Medina and people of that nature. And it's
00:11:55.780 like they have a different agenda. You know, they're walking a different walk. And I wasn't
00:12:01.660 down for that. And I wasn't, I didn't have the ears to listen at the time. I just wasn't there
00:12:06.740 yet they could have my parents talked to me but I've been beat up so much as a little kid because
00:12:14.120 I was light-skinned with green eyes in a black neighborhood you know and they used to slap me
00:12:18.960 and say watch him turn red and I had to learn how to fight at 13 14 and once I learned how to fight
00:12:25.640 now I'm gonna make everybody pay for what's happened to me and that's what I realized I was
00:12:31.280 doing i'm just battling i'm battling shadows from the past you ain't gonna punk me you know
00:12:38.720 and it's like i was punking myself so that's the hardest thing to get out of your own way to
00:12:45.980 recognize oh wow this ain't even about me hi everyone my name is terrence howard i'm an actor
00:12:53.460 but in the field of science also so if you would like to connect with me you can connect with me
00:12:59.640 on MNECT.
00:13:01.360 The QR code is down below.
00:13:03.800 And let's have a great conversation.
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