Sean Penn sues director Lee Daniels for $10million for likening him to wife-beater Terrence Howard
- Daniels compared Penn to Howard, who has admitted to domestic violence against to of his wife, in an interview last week
- Penn filed a lawsuit against Daniels on Tuesday, on the basis that he has never been charged or convicted of domestic violence
- While he has never served time for hitting either of his two wives, Penn's alleged violence against first-wife Madonna has been widely reported
Sean Penn has filed a $10million defamation suit against director Lee Daniels, who he claims falsely accused him of being a wife beater in a recent interview.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter published last week, Daniels compared the domestic violence histories of both Penn and Empire star Terrence Howard, saying: '[Terrence] ain't done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he's some f*****' demon. That's a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America.'
But Penn claims that Daniels was wrong to compare him with Howard - who has admitted to hitting two of his wives.
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Sean Penn (left) has filed a $10million defamation lawsuit against director Lee Daniels (right), for comparing him to admitted wife-beater Terrence Howard
Howard, pictured on the right at the Emmy's on Sunday, has been honest about hitting two of his wives
'Daniels falsely equates Penn with Howard, even though, while he has certainly had several brushes with the law, Penn (unlike Howard) has never been arrested, much less convicted, for domestic violence, as his ex-wives (including Madonna) would confirm and attest,' the lawsuit reads.
Penn's lawyer, former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart, writes in the lawsuit that as a public figure, the actor has 'for years been the subject of scandalous, scurrilous, and baseless attacks.
'But Penn like any citizen, has a right to defend himself and will no longer tolerate the reckless and malicious behavior of others, who seek to aggrandize themselves or their projects at his expense. Accordingly, and because of Daniels' defamatory statements, Penn brings this action for monetary relief, and to deter Daniels and others from their defamatory actions.'
Penn went on to say that Daniels statements about Howard were 'egregious' in the sense that they also seem 'to condone Howard's reported misconduct.' Daniels directs Howard on the Fox hit series Empire.
Madonna and Penn were married for four years, from 1985 until 1989. The former couple pictured above in October 1986
While Penn may never had been officially convicted of domestic assault, violent disputes with his ex-wife Madonna have been widely reported.
In 1987, Penn allegedly struck the pop star across the head with a baseball bat, but she didn't press charges.
Then, in December 1988, he reportedly tied her to a chair and beat her over a nine-hour period. Madonna escaped when he untied her to use the restroom and she fled to a nearby police station.
Lieutenant Bill McSweeney, who was working at the station at the time, described seeing a battered Madonna in a biography about the pop star by J. Randy Taraborrelli.
'When Madonna staggered into the station, she was distraught, crying, with makeup smeared all over her face. I hardly recognized her…she had obviously been struck,' McSweeney said.
But yet again, Madonna withdrew her complaint and the two divorced the following year.
As for Howard, the 46-year-old confessed to domestic abuse in a bizarre interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which he said he 'slapped' and not 'punched' his first wife and was acting in self-defense when he beat on his second.
Howard's first wife Lori McCommas, the mother of three of his children, claimed the Hustle & Flow star 'punched her twice with a closed fist' in a 2001 incident, according to a police report.
The couple, who wed in 1989, divorced in 2003, remarried in 2005 and divorced again in 2007 after which it was revealed the actor had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct as a result of the 2001 altercation.
He explained in his interview with Rolling Stone that McCommas had provoked him.
'She was talking to me real strong, and I lost my mind and slapped her in front of the kids,' he said.
'Her lawyer said it was a closed fist, but even slapping her was wrong.'
His second wife Michelle Ghent won a restraining order against him after claiming he had been physically abusive towards her as well as threatening and staling her.
In 2013, after rekindling their relationship, Ghent claimed he'd struck her, giving her a black eye, and tried to strangle her while they were vacationing in Costa Rica.
'She was trying to Mace me,' he told Rolling Stone when asked about it.
'You can't see anything so all you can do is try to bat somebody away, and I think that something caught her. But I wasn't trying to hit her,' he claimed.
A former girlfriend May Seng Yang wrote in a statement to police that Howard choked her and punched her in the eye before throwing her to the ground in 2012 after she accused him of giving her herpes.
The actor reciprocated by filing assault charges against Yang and they both eventually dropped their cases, settling the matter in civil court.
It's not just the women in his life who have been on the receiving end of his temper.
In 2005, he once again pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after knocking a man to the ground and hitting a woman after they got into an argument at a restaurant.
Howard was accused of trying to cut the line in front of the pair, sparking the confrontation.
He said he wasn't even in the line and had simply gone to ask about the wait time for a table and that he had acted in self-defense.
In 2000, a Continental Airlines flight attendant claimed the Crash star had assaulted her. The charges were eventually dropped.
But pubic opinion about his violent run-ins also, it seems, led him to accept his current critically-acclaimed role as Lucious Lyon in the Fox TV series Empire.
He told Rolling Stone simply: 'Since they see me as a bad guy, I'm gonna play a bad guy.'
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