Terry Crews accused a Hollywood talent agent of groping him last October, and the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor said he came forward with his story to show solidarity with women who were sharing their own #MeToo stories.
“The reason I even came forward in the first place is because people were dogging out all the women who came forward. This whole toxic masculinity thing is real,” Crews told BuzzFeed News in an interview on AM to DM on Wednesday.
“I just wanted these women to know that they weren't alone, because imagine the courage that it takes to be out there and to say that this happened to you, and then have no one believe you.”
Crews compared people not believing women’s sexual harassment and assault experiences to the civil rights movement, saying, “You can say they're lynching people out here and no one believes you, and they won't even go see it.”
“People were taking human beings and discarding them, and I couldn't handle it,” Crews said. “So I added my voice.”
Since tweeting about the incident in October and continuing to speak out, Crews said thousands of men have told him they’ve also experienced sexual assault.
According to the actor, it’s not the responsibility of men to speak for women, but instead, to hold other men accountable for their actions.
“What we need to do as men is to check other men when you see this kind of activity going on,” Crews said. “What we're talking about is not a conspiracy. We're talking about a complicit system. We're talking about guys who look the other way.”
“As a man, if you see something like that, you gotta be like, ‘Hey hey hey, no dude, this is not right,” the actor continued. “And all of a sudden, the culture changes.”