Terrence Howard has revealed that he once turned down the opportunity to play Marvin Gaye in a biopic of his life.
The actor made a guest appearance on on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast (April 27), where the topic turned to biopics about musicians.
Howard claimed to Maher that Smokey Robinson had 'wanted me to play his life', leading to the Motown star to invite him out for dinner.
However, the Iron Man star had to turn him down as he was in talks to portray another musical legend, Marvin Gaye.
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The comedian, 69, then responded that Gaye's story was 'much more interesting', adding that Howard would have been 'perfect as Marvin Gaye'.
However, the 56-year-old said he had to pass on the movie after hearing from the late former record producer Quincy Jones, who'd claimed that the singer had flings with men.
The 44-year-old never came out as gay or bisexual in his life, and was married to Anna Gordy for 10 years and Janis Hunter for five.
Talking about meeting Jones, Howard said: "I'm asking Quincy, 'I'm hearing rumors that Marvin was gay', and Marvin was gay. And I'm like, 'was he gay?', and Quincy's like, 'yes'. He went around it with everything and I was like, 'no', and I'm like - 'I could not'.
"They would have wanted to do that [for the male leads to kiss] and I wouldn't have been able to do that."
Maher then asked: "You mean you couldn't kiss a guy on-screen in a movie?"
"No. No. No, because I don't fake it, I literally it has to..." Howard replied, to which Maher interjected: "I couldn't kiss a man either."
"That would f*** me, I would cut my lips off. If I kiss some man I would cut my lips off," Howard further claimed.
Maher responded: "Well I would not do that but it does not make me homophobic to not want to kiss a man."
Howard then concluded: "Do what you love to do but don't do it at me, don't aim it at me and I can't play that character, 100 percent I can't - I can't surrender myself to a place that I don't understand.
"So that's the end part of of that story."
Since then, he has received backlash from people online for his comments.
"Fair enough it’s his choice if he doesn’t want to do the job. No one forced him to take it. But he didn’t have to get all homophobic and public about it," one person wrote on Reddit.
Another added: "He could have said the role wasn’t for him, that he didn’t have the range as an actor to pull it off, or a multitude of other things."
While a third typed on Twitter that someone 'shouldn't feel threatened and insecure about another person's sexual orientation and turn down a movie role because of it'.
However, some agreed with him, as one commenter said: "I really have no issue with him not wanting to kiss another man, I would not. I don't care if its acting, it's not something I would want to engage in. To each their own though. With that said, he'd probably have been better off not saying this lol."
Another said: "Wording def could’ve been better, but is not homophobic to say you don’t want to kiss another man."
UNILAD has contacted Terrence Howard's reps for comment.
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Social Media
Joe Yates