Out Star Trek: Discovery star Wilson Cruz is clapping back after actor Terrence Howard went on a homophobic rant on a podcast.
On a recent episode of the PBD Podcast, the 56-year-old Empire and Iron Man star told host Patrick Bet-David that men who attended Sean “Diddy” Combs' infamous parties gave up their “manhood.”
“When you give up your manhood, I’ve never seen somebody recover from it. That was all the people that went to the Puffy parties,” Howard said, according to Queerty. “That was all the people that did all those things thinking that there was never gonna be a consequence for what they were doing. Get punked out and p*mped out by some over-greater desire.”
Combs is currently sitting in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting his criminal trial which is set to begin May 5. The successful rapper and music producer is being charged with racketeering, which includes alleged incidents of kidnapping, drugging, and coercing women into sexual activity with the threat of violence — as well as new charges of sex trafficking and engaging in prostitution, the BBC reports.
Leaning into an outdated version of masculinity, Howard went on to say that he never took on “gay roles” during his career because he would have had to give up his “man card.”
“I’ve lost businesses because I don’t bend over in that way. I don’t compromise. I don’t play gay roles. I don’t kiss a man. I don’t do that s**t because the man card means everything.”
As a gay actor himself, Cruz didn’t let Howard's anti-LGBTQ+ comments stand.
“He sure did talk a different talk and act in a different way when it came to working with me in the 90’s. Loved my work, loved my choices, etc. This fool is out here performing for the WHYTE man, doing and saying what he needs to do to get over. He is quite literally BENDING OVER and doing what pleases THE MAN and he seems to enjoy it,” he wrote on Threads when he shared a clip of Howard on the podcast.
“The truth is no one wants to work with his tired a**, anyway, due to his ego and lack of work ethic, so quite literally, Go f*ck yourself. You are the sellout here,” he continued.
Cruz also tagged Howard in his Instagram Stories when he shared a post by The Feminist Vibe that reads, “Maybe you wouldn’t feel so emasculated by feminism if your manhood was rooted in something other than oppressing women,” signing it “Sincerely, Real Men.”