He Kept This Secret for 10 Years, But His Wife Already Knew.

I went to a massage bar and I said, "I will never ever tell. I'm in the van with the baby talking to Jesus and I hear your husband has cheated on you and he'll never tell you." And I said, "Well, how am I supposed to prove that?"

I was ready to This is the Hollywood story. I said, "This is how this is how it is. The whole thing is fake it till you make it." Mhm. But when you make it, you still fake. M. This was the moment like I never Woo. Man, February 10th, 2010. But I couldn't go nowhere. The Mercer Hotel in Soho. And it felt like a prison. And as she her call just kept coming and I felt the womb was getting closer and closer.

It just rolled out of me like a prophecy. What don't I know about you, Terry Cruz? Hear me when I say this. God said, he said, "If you don't tell her, I'm done with you." He said, "I'm giving you one shot." And then she called one more time.

This is the deep end with LRA. I never read intros. Y'all know this. But I'm reading this today because cuz it's two powerhouses. This is a lot. It's a lot of fire in a building. Um 36 years in February if I'm not mistaken. July. July. Okay. Okay. Just checking. 36 years in July. Uh uh married uh we have a an incredible story of two individuals who are powerhouses. Music, film, television, uh you name it, professional sports, um all in here. There's not there's there's no intro that is satisfactory uh as I think about this couple, but I'm gonna do my best. All right? So, I'm gonna do my best as it pertains to to talking about who they are. They're more than just uh uh what what the public sees. Uh what we have is we have an incredible couple who has endured more than you can imagine.

We talk Well, first of all, let me tell you what they've endured. They've endured Flint and Gary, Indiana. Okay, that's what they've endured. No, but all jokes aside, um, you know, we've Terry as an actor, former NFL player, author, advocate, host of America's Got Talent, Rebecca as a singer, a producer, entrepreneur, the backbone behind this whole situation. Uh, Terry and Rebecca King Cruz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many accolades and awards and I was like, let's talk about the people. Um, the first thing I just want to I want to go there is Flint and Gary. Yes. Y'all came from some tough places. Yeah, buddy. How does How does Flint and Gary get together and uh and not burn the house now? Uh, in college is how we got together in church. That's how we got together. The Lord. The Lord brought. With a T. Yeah. The Lord spoke to him and spoke to me. Uh, we were both going to school in Kalamazoo. Yeah. I was a theater major. It's right in the middle. It is in the middle. Exactly. Two hours each way. Um, me for theater and uh, he was playing football. And um, I was music minister at a local church there. Mhm. And uh, he he and his friends were in a campus ministry. Left that ministry. Yeah. Looking for another church. Okay. Came to our church. So four of their boys married four of our girls. Yeah. And we had a bunch of weddings. Uh, and that's how we got together. And the whole story is very supernatural, the matchmaking of it all. But, um, that's where we met.

Well, I'm going to get into a little bit of the the the weird part of it because, you know, I I had just stepped out of a a Christian cult. Mhm. Okay. A lot of people who may be my age may know of this. It was a campus ministry called Marinatha Ministries. M uh and marinatha was a thing where it was it was cultish in the way that you had to you know one thing they would say is like if Jesus is not lord of all he's not lord at all. And I was like and that made us sense we go oh yeah amen amen. But what that meant was if you don't do everything we say the way we say it. Then you out you out. Okay. Uh and here I was I was coming from the Church of God in Christ which was another very legalistic. Extreme. Okay. So I was used to rules. I was used to what we couldn't do. It it wasn't really talked about what you could do. It was what you can't do, what you shouldn't do, and what we caught you doing. You know what I mean? My mom though, my mom grew up coaching, so I know this. She hurt her to this day. It just was relentless and it was very very shame based. Um, lots of shame to spread around for everybody. Yeah. Did I don't remember a lot of good feelings. Um, you know, and I and I grew up in that very very legalistic thing. I was not allowed to go to the movies, not allowed to listen to secular music, not allowed to dance. Everything I ended up doing with my whole life I was not allowed to do as a young boy.

Now, we came out of that a little bit more once we started listening to Fred Price and and started, you know, kind of expanding a little bit, learning about faith a little more. Um, some people call it the prosperity gospel and this kind of thing because before it was like you weren't supposed to have nothing, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it was extremes on every end. It it was like, you know, they rich cuz the devil gave it to them, you know. Then it became, you know, like you you can have everything. Just just pray and say it and claim it, you know. Uh, so then I left I mean I got into that as at the high school and then I left and went to school and I thought, okay, I'm free from that. But I walked right back into legalism. Because I that was what I was familiar with. Mhm. And I'll never forget that, you know, they the church was make me, you know, they would make me feel guilty about listening to music, you know, and and I felt guilty enough that I threw away all my secular me, all my tapes, my mixtapes, all my stuff. I'm a big hip-hop fan. Grew up in it. Mhm. And I loved it. Mhm. But they were they were like, "Hey, you know, it was what it was." and and the legalism. I'll never forget once we we went uh down south to a conference and it was the black members of the church. Mhm. And they had a like a a black like pre-conference to the big conference in Dallas, Texas. And it was me and my friends. We all drove down. And the leader of the church said, "Hey, look y'all." She said, "First of all, y'all need to be thankful for slavery." The wife. Wait, the head. The head. The head of the ministry's wife. Because if you weren't, you would be in the jungle worshiping idols. And we all looked at each other. This is the black conference, right? Wow. In the days of PE, in the days of African medallions that we looked at each other like, we out. That's can't be. Like it was the like the moment hit where we were like what are they talking about. Man. And I said thankful for slavery. Understand God brought us through slavery. For sure. For sure. But not. But that was not his intention. That was now like like let's bless slavery. You know, like huh. And and dude, we went out. I drove. We drove back. I left. Yeah. And that's where I met him. Right. They came to a Wednesday night service. And this is this I got invited to this church she was at. Yeah. Christian Life. And I felt like I saw her on the keyboard. I went. Who is that? Yeah. And she's on the keyboard. She's young. She's beautiful. And I'm going it don't make sense. Like wow. Cuz another thing, everyone was much older, you know, and and I saw she's just so youthful and like, Well, and we were in the upstart of the church at the time. Pastor Joel Brooks. Hi, Pastor Joel. We love you. Um, the church was maybe 200 people, right? So Joel was a musician. And so he had a two keyboards and a drum machine. That was it. Yeah. He would play for worship. He had one singer. Yeah. Then he'd get off the keyboard and preach. Wow. So when I came to the church, he's like, "Another keyboard player. Let's have it." So he brought me in on a Tuesday night and he saw I could play and he put me in charge of their music department. And so I had built like their praise team and then eventually the choir and all that. So I served him for like six, seven years.

From from what I understand like you were even though your background is still rocky with your family, your dad passed away when you were like six. Yeah. You're still like a little more centered spiritually. Um, I was my parents were lovely heathens is what I said they were my uh my daddy was a PK. Okay. And so he was the rebellious PK. So white boy from Kentucky, married a black girl in Michigan, had three kids. Uh, rode a motorcycle. He was a black panther. So he's socially active. All these things, right? Indiana is very Yeah. So I used to joke he was like the Justin Timberlake of his day because he was also musician. Played six instruments. Okay. Gigged on the weekends, worked at the steel mill during the week. He dies suddenly in a car accident. Boom, bam, I have a stepdad. Stepdad is atheist. And so we're not going to church. We're not, you know, I know about God and we do the now I lay me down to sleep, that kind of thing. That kind of prayer. Um, but my mother put us in religious schools for the benefit of the private. So, Lutheran school, Episcopalian school, Catholic school. So, you're hearing about God in all these forms. Okay. But truth is, I had a little preacher call on me when from I was like five or six preaching to my friends, right? So, I was the odd one in my family and at 17 I got dramatically born again. Okay. Dramatically born. So, I had been playing in gospel choirs, doing all these things with my talents. Okay. And because I believed in God and I believed the Ten Commandments, I thought I was saved. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I would hear people talk about Jesus in this personal way, I'm like, well, I want Jesus to talk to me like that, you know. And I began to seek more and listen to the Christian preachers on the radio. And then I went through hell. I had this like really it was a battle to really give my whole life to God cuz I remember saying this prayer like, "God, I really want to serve you." Mhm. And man, I went through, I guess, what I would call a battle for my soul. Mhm. Uh, a lot of intense demonic warfare, depression, suicidal thoughts just started to come over me. And it wasn't like something that something had just happened to me to make me feel like that. It was just like a breakdown. Yeah. And um and G and the Lord appeared to me nine months later, right before Easter. He delivered me from this confusion. And I went out telling my testimony and I won the Miss Gary pageant and I was talking everywhere about Jesus. And then I got accepted to Western and I went there. To to finish my education and I was a part of Campus Crusade for Christ. I'm like, I'm going to serve the Lord. I'm going to be a Broadway actress and you know, and that that was that. And so my downfall was, of course, with these daddy issues. I need someone to love me. Mhm. So I'm a virgin all the way to college, right? Met some No, I shouldn't call him that. At the time, he wasn't no good. He's a better person today. Um, I got pregnant by this gentleman. Um, and before I even knew I was pregnant, we had ended the relationship. I was moving on with my life, and I discovered that I'm having a baby. Mhm. So, I'm despondent. I'm suicidal. I've told my Kentucky Fried Chicken testimony cuz all I could eat was the mashed potatoes from Kentucky Fried Chicken cuz I threw up all day, all night. Mhm. And I'm in my little Kalamazoo apartment, despondent, want to die, and I fell on my knees. I said, "Jesus, I'm sorry." I said, "How?" Well, I was a little mad because I was like, "How I do this one time and I got pregnant?" You know, all my friends all in the street. A friend just liked it. And I got pregnant the first time I did. And I said, "Man, and when I'm on my knees, I had an epiphany, open vision. And it was a cloud of people applauding for me." And I had a ring on my finger. I had a ring. And they're like, "Congratulations. Congratulations." And then the voice of the Lord said, "You're going to be married by the time your daughter is 2 years old." And um, you're going to be married by the time she's two. So he told me I'm having a girl and I'm getting a husband. And I was like okay. I mean that that was all I could say cuz I thought well who what where? And in that journey people introduced me to this other church Christian Life Center where I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost changed my life. I served in ministry with them. Mhm. Uh learned how to walk by faith, learned how to heal the sick, how to cast out demons, how to walk in power, and I was on his staff for six, seven years and that's where I met him.

Yeah. Okay. So, this that's a that's a good place to to because you're having this vision, you have this this epiphany, this this vision from the Lord of this future, but it's it's not going to be as pretty as it seems. You know, a lot of times when God gives you a vision, you think of Joseph, it's like, "Hey, you going, this was going to happen. You going, they going to be bound out before you, it's a lot longer than you thought it was going to be. It's a lot harder than you thought it was going to be, but it's better than you thought it was going to be." All right. So, I I think of y'all and just hitting the fast forward button a little bit. Um, you two end up together, which is crazy because you're not a dad, you're young, you decide to let me go ahead and marry this this young mom. Uh, you are an artsy kid. Yes. But you're playing football. Right? And so it's kind of like, well, I'm going to choose the football dream, even though you're an RC kid. You get this lackluster uh football career going for you. And I I I don't want to skip over y your NFL time because I know that was a pivotal time in y'all's marriage and y'all's relationship as well. But there's one moment that really sticks out for me. You seem like the very spiritually grounded person. And you seem like the the like solid person. You seemed at this time a little bit like emotionally all over the place. Unstable. Absolutely. Of course, your background is crazy, you know, just growing up with. Yeah. A broken home, but there's one moment and you know, you guys can fill in the d the gaps, the details. It's draft day. You are arrogantly assuming you about to be drafted high in the or at least couple rounds in. Yes. Draft day comes and goes. Yes. You are in a ball of tears. Yep. And you come and you like, "Hey, if God want like get get up like talk to me about that moment and what that dynamic was at that time." I remember, you know, I was a a measure of extremes. Okay. I was either all the way down or all the way up. I was I would almost be called it bipolar, you know. In retrospect, I would agree with you. Yeah. Um at the time, I would just say, "Honey, why you got to get so excited about everything?" Wait, but see, you got to know, I remember at the end, at the end of my last uh they had a banquet with my last year at college and I didn't get an award and I was going to quit football. Like I I came home, remember? And here, now here's the funny thing. Yeah. I woke up in the middle of the night with the new baby. We had a our daughter, Azrael. So, I'm nursing the baby, praying in the spirit. And the Lord said, "They're not going to give him anything, Rebecca, and he's going to want to quit." And you tell him that I'm going to keep my promise to him because a prophet, what year was maybe the year before a prophet prophesied that contract? Wow. Over us. But he prophesied it to me. M. Right. And then he prophesied something to him that sounded more like it should have been for me. And the Lord said, I'm crossing my hands. Because the two of you are one. What's for you is for him and him and for you. Okay. So we played that tape over and over again to stand on the word that he was going to get that contract. So I was convict. So when he came home and told me that they hadn't, I said the Lord already told me and he told me to tell you don't quit. Are you that confident at the in the moment? Are you like. I was completely. Get up, Terry. I was completely confident. You got to understand. But it wasn't my dream. It was. We got But this is the thing. Rebecca has been doing this our whole every since we were dating. Like she saw stuff. She be like, "Listen, I see this. I see." Wait, you got understand we were hanging out and she would run around, listen, I'm first of all, God told me I'm I'm gonna be married by two. And I'd be like, "Oh, that poor woman be quiet." I did. Let me tell you, I used to be like, "Oh, I wouldn't tell nobody that." I had no intention of marrying this woman, right? I didn't know it was me. I didn't know. She would be like, "I'm my my by the time the baby's two, I'm going to be married. God showed me this. God showed me that. God, wait." And I have to say this. A year before the Lord woke me up on a Saturday, I was going to beauty school. So, and we had no class. He said, "I want you to go to the wedding dress store and pick out a dress and put it on layaway." Okay. So, I found this dress at the nicest store in Kalamazoo. It was a sample, so it was like 50% off. Mhm. I put my little $40. I paid like whatever a month. I had no boyfriend. I had no. No. Man. No. And I just put it on. I paid it. And I kid you not, I took that dress out of layaway a week before our lady. I didn't know. As intense. Yeah. So, and even in that process when he said you're going to get married, he said start reading books on marriage. Go to the married class. Go to the engaged couples class, read everything you can find to prepare to be married. So, when I came back from that banquet, I was like done. And she said, "No, God said this." And I went, "Okay, okay. All right." Right. And I I just remember I was I give but but because she I seen her prophetic views and how she had her her the way she had saw it. Then I would go all the way to the other extreme. I'm going to be the man. I am going. This is where the draft comes up where I'm like all that. And you got to understand I went to the combine and killed it. Like people who had ranked me like I had you know in my college it was very racist and they wouldn't let me play linebacker because this the coach we had felt like white guys were more smart than black guys so he had no black linebackers you know what I mean so he made put me down as defensive end which I should have been playing linebacker even my the pros were like why weren't you playing linebacker I said hey it's a long story okay. So anyway I go in there and now I'm thinking because they got me ranked at this position and I'm hearing great things. Now I take it to a whole another extreme and then I didn't get dropped and I'm sitting here going, "Yeah, what?" And actually, the Lord had already told me he's not going to go high, but he's going to get in. And I told him that. I said I said, "I read this article about players who make the team even in the late rounds." I said, "I really feel honey that you you're not going to go in those top rounds." Is this after he didn't get drafted? This was before. How do you feel when she tells you, "Hey, just so you know, you're not going high." Well, I and I thought I was like, "I'm buying you. I buy that in the name of Jes." He did. He walked around. I'm going for I said, "You're not going to get behind me, Satan." You know, thou don't know. You don't know what it I was like, "H, okay, boy." Cuz every time he'd say that, I go, "Honey, I'm not sensing." She was. She said, "I'm sensing you're you're going to get in. God's going to do it." I turned off what she said. I was like, "Hey, stop talking to me like that." Cuz I I would have like open visions like I would look at a picture of him and it would move. And the college uniform would turn into a pro uniform and then it would go back still like live photos just what it is. And he said, "Just like you have photos of your husband in this college uniform, you're going to have photos of him in pro uniform, okay? He's going to have a career." And I said, "Oh, can we stay on one team?" God said, "You're not going to stay on one team." I was like, "Oh, God."

Okay, so Terry and Rebecca like are modeling vulnerability in marriage. And sometimes the hardest vulnerability is admitting when your mind feels overwhelmed, right? There's Christians out there who spend years thinking that they're broken or failing God. And a lot of this is because they're struggling with these unwanted or distressing thoughts. But this this isn't a spiritual failure. It's actually due to a common but overlooked condition called religious OCD. And I'm talking about thoughts that interrupt worship. Am I praying right? Will God forgive me if I make a mistake in my prayer? I need to start over and do it perfectly this time. Or maybe there's a blasphemous image that pops in your head and it's making you feel like you've sinned just for thinking about it. And I wanted thoughts like that can be a sign of religious OCD, also known as scrupulosity OCD. And it's a form of OCD that can turn your faith into a source of constant guilt and doubt and fear. But because the condition is still widely misunderstood, a lot of people don't even know that it can show up like this or that it can center around their faith. But OCD isn't just about being neat and organized. OCD latches on to what you care about most and causes a cycle of distressing, intrusive thoughts and behaviors done to get rid of the anxiety that they create. And many people silently struggle with religious OCD, thinking it's some sort of personal failure or lack of faith when that couldn't be further from the truth. It's a common type of OCD. It's highly treatable with the right type of specialized therapy. And that is where NOCD comes in. So, NOCD is the world's leading OCD treatment provider. All of their licensed therapists are trained in ERP or exposure and response prevention therapy, the most effective treatment for OCD. And OCD therapists deeply, deeply understand OCD. So, they know that these thoughts don't mean anything about you. And in these live virtual sessions, they'll help you break free from OCD's grip while honoring your faith so you can get back to focusing on what matters most. OCD is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans and they provide support between sessions. So you are never alone. And if you think you might be struggling with religious OCD, don't wait. All right. Head over to nocd.com, book a free 15-minute call with their team today and start reclaiming your faith from OCD. That's noocd.com.

So So the draft does come. You do get drafted. It seems like a dream come true. What a lot of people don't know is you got paid basically for how much you played at the time. So you weren't getting a lot of playing time early on. No, it was it was I was in practice squad and then I got picked up but it was the the league minimum is what it is. And. And so so you're making a league minimum. How are y'all optimistic? Because I I've seen this story before. I've seen like God's going to do it. It's going to happen. We're going to get it. And then you start like manifesting or pushing your way through when it's like, wait a minute, that's not quite how the Lord designed it. But then you hit a a rough patch. You you got two kids now. Right? You you move out to California. You you're the football's like working, not working. How are you confident still? How's the marriage doing? How is raising kids? What is this like during this time? I. I want to say this to I never really liked football ever. Football was not the end. It was a means. I was an artist. And when we were dating, that's another thing. We sat in front of a Wendy's, right? Calamazoo, and I said, "Look, we going to go to NFL and then we're going to move to LA. We're going to make movies." Okay. So, that was always the vision. Always the plan. Okay. So, we So, but I wasn't going to act. I thought I was going to get behind the scenes. Remember, this is the days of Spike Lee, She's Got to Have It. Uh, Robert Towns and and Hollywood show and you know. So, y'all just too creatives. Right? Right. Are y'all ideally dancing? Wait, I'm I'm moving sets. She's playing in Dream Girls. I was being a light-skinned to. And I'm just I'm backstage moving the sets just so I can be close to her. You know what I mean? So, she was the upfront outfront kind of person and she plays in the church. So, she's always out there. I'm just act they're like supportive and but I want to be this behind the scenes artist but I actually thought it was going to be a special effects artist and I was writing stories and. But I ever since I saw Star Wars cuz remember we weren't allowed to go to the movies right. That's right. My aunt took us to see Star Wars and I knew that was going to be my life. Okay. Since 1977 I said I have to do this nothing else moves me like this. And she agreed like once We we said we're going to go to LA. She knew that was it. And we were sympathic. I want to say that too. When we were when when the Lord spoke to me about you're going to meet this person. I mean I was three months pregnant with this baby by this other guy. I'm three months pregnant. So she's not even born yet. Oh, that's crazy. She's not even born yet. And he's telling me you're going to get married. Then, while I'm seven months pregnant, painting a crib, a borrow, somebody gave me an old crib. I'm painting the crib, I suddenly just had this urge to sit down, rest, and watch some TV, which I'm not a big TV watcher. I turn on this little TV that's probably never been on at my apartment. And Robin Leech comes on, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and he's talking, and I'm just sitting there staring. All of a sudden, whoop, I'm inside the TV like Raven. I'm inside the TV and I'm on the boat with John Travolta. I'm on the plane with whoever else and I'm in the TV and then I come out the TV and the Lord said, "That's going to be your life." And I said, "I rebuke you, devil. I'm called to preach and I am not materialistic and I would never, you know." And I just did that. I went back to painting my crib, but I felt this grieving, but I didn't know what it was. M. So I just went on painting my crib, had my baby, finished school, serving at the church. In walks this guy in a yellow t-shirt with Tweety Bird on it. And it was so tight. I was like, "Who are you trying to impress with his little muscles?" And I said I said to Joe, who was his friend, I was like, "Hey Joe, what's up? What's up?" You know, he's like, "Oh, it's my boy Terry." And I turn around, "Hi, Terry." Turn back around. He's like, "I like the way you play that keyboard, sister. I said, "Thank you." Sounds so slimy. I gave him He wasn't that slimy. It wasn't. You were trying to be like Christian humble. I had no. He was trying to be humble, you know? You know what I mean? I had no game at all. I like the way you play. Yeah. I like the way you play keyboard system. Yeah. And he interrupt and he interrupted us like me and Joe were talking and he he kind of butted in. Yeah. And I'm like, "Who are you?" Cuz I was already in that place. I don't need no man. I don't me and Jesus is all I need, you know. So, I wasn't looking. And even though God had told me I was going to get married, I was on that do not touch me, do not talk to me. I'm visible. Got you. Till the one is coming. Yeah. So, you you're you're just you're in for the ride that God is taking you on because. 100%. It's like, "All right, Lord, if this is the ride you you taking me on, I I guess in my mind, I see these two kind of idealistic, passionate people." Now, here's the thing. When you look at your story, a lot of times the supernatural thread isn't always prominent. Right. Right. Cuz we the culture we live in, people love the highlight reels, right? We love. Oh, NFL. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Musical theater, scholarship. Acting. But there's a there's a supernatural thread that's woven in here that is interesting to me. There's a lot of a picture of redemption that's woven in into the story that I think gets missed. And I'm I'm kind of weaving through it because I know there's a bigger mission that God has y'all on. But I I just for people to understand the journey. Two kids coming from these kind of broken backgrounds. If you find each other, you're listening to God. I don't know God. All right. There we go. You're very idealistic, but things just keep happening. NFL and then like, "Oh, we're gonna be in LA." And then you get to LA and you're it's everything's, you know, God has a plan for this. I'm just curious supernaturally, spiritually, when everything hits the fan initially, right? I'm not even we haven't even gotten to the 2000s yet. But but when you are no longer playing in the NFL, you run out of money. You got to sweep floors to make a living. Y. What are y'all's What's your perspective spiritually, supernaturally during this time period? Well, you have one thing you have to understand is that you can be broke anywhere. Sure. Again. So you got to understand everything was better than Flint. Yep. Or Gary. That's true. Or Gary. Okay. We were going I've been to both. You understand? Listen, if I went back to Flint, I was going to die. And I was going back to. And we knew there's nothing there for us. Like it was empty. It was gone. My my high school doesn't even exist. Like everything I used to go to is a field. Yeah. They were raising it as we left. M. You could there were there were tractors just rolling over bricks. Okay. It was like Terminator. It was like Walking Dead. What was there to return to? Well, So now we out here, you know, it's like, you know, it's it's literally like the the the the all of the other stuff been cut, so we got to go. And I She was I'll never forget. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things when we we moved when we went to LA cuz you got to understand when Washington cut me. And then I went to Philadelphia Eagles for a minute and that was the end. Like I I did a trial for the 49ers and it just went terrible, man. And I was done. Like when I say done, I did not want more any more football. And and this was the thing when I came back from that try out, I was like I was scared to tell her that I didn't want to play football anymore. M. And she looked at me and again and and all she has is this seeing. She just sees. Mhm. And she said, "It's not in you anymore." And I I looked at her like like sheeparted. She said, "Your heart has departed from this." And she said, "Remember what you said to me?" It's time for us to go to LA and make movies. Well, in partly because you were already doing it. I was. But see, I was I was in I was doing like independent stuff and I was having and she saw my light when we had shot this little independent movie in Detroit and got kicked out and it was terrible. We never finished it and I had the time of my life. All I could think of lit up. Yeah. I was my energy as an artist, you know, I mean, we weren't making no money. Broke, but I love this. And I want to mention this. Remember I told you how I read all the books, right? One of the books I read, God rest his soul, Dr. Ed Lewis Cole. Right. Maximize manhood, communication, sex and money, all these books. One of the things Dr. Cole said was he had a teaching called entering and leaving. He said often when we enter something in the will of God, there's all these fireworks and explosions and prophecies and confirmations, but often when it's time to leave, the only thing reason you know it's time to leave is that your heart has departed from it. And that stuck with me. And I just looked at him and that whole thing came back to my mind. I said, "Your heart has departed from football. It's time to leave it." He's like, "Really?" I said, "Yeah." And she was already making relationships in LA. Yeah. Uh, and I said, "Let's go." I said, "We're we're not doing nothing. We're not doing nothing here but sitting and waiting for a team to call you. Why sit here till we die?" You know? Wow. So, we moved all our belongings into storage in Flint. Mhm. Me and the kids were with his parents for like what, a month or less. Mhm. And um and I prepaid the mover. I said, "We're moving to LA. We haven't found our spot yet." When I call you, bring it. And I We drove out. Did we drive together on that trip? We drove together. Together. We with a 5ft U-Haul behind us. Yep. And we landed in those little apartments in Pasad uh Burbank. And we stayed there and when we found our place I called the mover. I said bring my stuff and we plopped ourselves in Burbank. We put the kids in school. I want to say this. I want to say this just all up to kind of lay the groundwork on what this is because you have to understand I had a secret life at the same time. Mhm. Um I developed a addiction to pornography since I was like 9 years old 8 years old. And when you are in a shamebased lifestyle, you know, one thing is you don't I couldn't tell anybody. You know, you just realize that nobody they're going to be like, you know, you you just pray and get over and thing. I didn't know because the the what I found is how I dealt with anything that was stressful. It wasn't drugs, wasn't weed, it wasn't alcohol, it was porn. Mhm. And when things got too hectic, I needed an escape. Mhm. And and and you got to understand, I had this even before I met her. So even in college, even in the church, even all this stuff, I would I would bench and uh I remember reading the story your mom actually caught you. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. Oh my god. But but we but you got to understand we never really had a conversation about this because my mother at the same time she was addicted to Harlequin romance novels like all and I remember reading those and it was real dirty, you know? I was like whoa. But she had stacks and stacks of these. So there was a like a through line in our household. My father had a whole secret. He had mistresses all over. People would call strange like your man is over here and my mother would argue and hang up the phone and I knew he had a secret life. So everybody had something, you know, we claimed God. But we had something. We were all when when it got tough, this was our this was our little like thing that we cried to keep. And I never told her. And you got to understand, I thought getting married would be the end of it. I thought, "Oh, I'm going to get married. I got me a real woman." But the first argument. I was back. Mhm. I even walked in from work one day cuz by then I'm working in hair salon. And I walked in the apartment and I said, "I don't know why, but I keep just seeing this picture of somebody watching porn in in the room." I'm like, "Are you watching porn?" He said, "Oh, no, no, no." But I saw like a vision of like a cassette tape, like a VHS going in and and I said that to him and he was like, "Oh, no. That was a long time ago." You know. That didn't freak you out that your wife was like, "Oh, yeah. Smells like adult family stuff." Listen, man. Wait, you got to know it was close. And I was like, and then I would always be like, "That's it." Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But now. But and this another thing, you only as sick as your secrets. Yeah. You know. Because I told him, I said, "Had you confided in me about the struggle, I could have prayed for you, interceded for you. I would I mean, now you talking about real people, that might have been a bigger struggle for me to like see it as an addiction and help you, but I can understand porn because my brother watched porn. We we were exposed to a lot with parents who didn't serve the Lord, you know, I mean, right? So, um I I mean, I had been sexually abused. So had my siblings. We were not like protected kids, you know. So, so I felt like we could have prayed and fought through this together, but he never felt like he could tell me.

All right. I don't want to interrupt your conversation cuz Terry and Rebecca have a ton of spiritual reconstructing and rebuilding that they've done in their marriage. And sometimes that work isn't just spiritual, right? Sometimes it's practical. And life doesn't just happen bi-weekly. So, we have responsibilities, right? We got things that we got to take care of. Payday, right? Payday shouldn't happen bi-weekly either, as far as I'm concerned. The money that you've earned should be in your hands. And so, that's why I'm excited about Earn In because with Earn In there's there's an opportunity for you here. Earning is an app that lets you access your pay as you earn it up to $150 a day with a max of $1,000 between paydays. Just download the earning app and you add your info and then start accessing your pay as you work and leave an optional tip to help keep the app running for everyone else. All right. Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck. Earnin empowers you to make the most of your money with access to up to $150 a day of your pay with a max of a th000 between paydays. No interest, no credit check, no mandatory fees. I know for a lot of families that flexibility can mean covering groceries before payday, filling up the tank, handling rent, or taking care of an unexpected bill without falling into a debt trap. And it's not about reckless spending, it's about financial momentum. So download Earn In today, spelled E A R N I N in the Google Play or the Apple App Store. And when you download the Earning app, type in the deep end with Larae under podcast when you sign up. It's going to help the show. The deep end with LCRA under podcast. Earnin is a financial technology company. It's not a bank. Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors. Standard cash outs take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfers available for a fee. Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service. Available in select states. Terms and restrictions apply. Visit earnin.com for full details. Download earnin now. Take control of your pay.

Are there insecure? Like we're talking now, right? I mean at at that time it's like. Yeah. Where. Dreamchasers? We don't know where what tomorrow looks like. But if you fast forward the tape, right? He's a worldrenowned superstar. Yep. Are there insecurities that come with that? Um, I always I have to say I always prided myself on not being insecure because I always felt if God gave you to me, you know, we're supposed to be together. Um, you're out there with all these kinds of people, well, so am I. And I felt like if I can keep myself, so can you. That's how I felt. Now, that was maybe um naive. But I felt like, hey, I w I went through a period where I just threw all caution to the wind, you know, and I slept around and then I said, you know, that's boring. I Jesus is better to me than all this. So, it was um a revelation to me that that was kind of empty, chasing the wind, you know. So, I guess I felt like because I had had temptations when we were married, I had people that I was attracted to or had crushes on or people that I felt had qualities he didn't. And I would wrestle in my own self, but I would hold myself accountable. I had women I'd pray with. I even told his mom, I was living with his mom and I told her, I said, "Trish," because I was close to her. I said, "I'm attracted to this guy at church." She's like,

"Why?" I said.

"Well, I don't know." And I told her, she says, "I'll pray for you, Becky."

I said, "Thank you." And I prayed for myself. And I remember saying, crying out to God, saying, "Please take this feeling away from me because I don't want to dishonor you, dishonor my marriage. I gave you my whole life. I'm trying to get all the way to the end of this with an A, you know, not no F on the report card."

And I woke up the following morning and the feeling was gone. Yeah. The feeling, whatever it was, whether it was demonic, whether it was soloulish, it was gone. And when I would see this person, I wouldn't feel anything.

"So, you kind of had a built-in expectation of like, hey, I went through this."

"Right? You can handle yourself."

"Yeah."

"So, the only thing that I ever I will say this, the only time I ever had a moment of going, are you changing? When he started dressing differently, when he started like he always wore his kind of boy from Flint, you know, even if it was a blazer or whatever, and then he started wearing uh Nana's clothes, Nana Bang, and everything was skin tight and his shirts open down to here. I say, 'Honey, as a Christian man, should you really be like have your shirt and the gold chain? You want to look like that old dude in the club? Like, what?'"

"Oh, but it's Hollywood."

"And I was like, 'Yeah, but you look silly.' And I and that was where I started to go, who are you becoming?"

"You know what I mean?"

"Well, a lot of a lot of a lot of people I had a moment 2014, number one album in the country, won a Grammy, and I couldn't see it, but people around me could see like, 'Oh, he's changing.'"

"Yeah."

"But I couldn't see it. And so I'm I'm curious. Do Do you know you're changing?"

"It's weird. I I I'm thinking I'm doing what I what needs to be done, so to speak."

"Okay."

"There was there was a couple time like I'll never forget. Um see, this is the thing."

"It's the image."

"And you have I'm thinking look, you know, everybody has an image. Everybody has something. You you you you got to keep this real life here and you got to show them this."

"Okay. So that's what my mentality was."

"And the problem with that is, you know, it's the whole thing is fake it till you make it. But when you make it, you still fake. Okay. And it's crazy because the image is not you."

"Mhm."

"And I we went to this party. I'll never forget cuz I can tell it now. But going through this stuff, I they were giving out cigars. I remember walking around. I don't even smoke. But I'm walking around with this cigar with a swag and she looked at me like, 'What are you doing?'"

"Like I told him off all the way home."

"She did."

"I was like,"

"And I felt"

"big phony blowing smoke on me. I was like,"

"'Yeah, but but I walked around. I was like, 'Huh, I got to do the thing. I got to do the thing.' Cuz it's a thing as a crew. I'm an actor. So I acted all the time."

"And and and it's another thing. I mean, it was so wild that it was so all about how it looked where if somebody was watching, I'd pull up and I'd jump out and run out and open the door for her. But if nobody was watching, I'd be like, 'Get out. Go ahead and get out.'"

"She'd be like, 'What in the world?'"

"Yeah. What I was big old fake."

"I was like I was pregnant. And so one time he did that to me. He jumped out the car into cuz people were watching."

"the door. People were watching."

"I said, 'You a lying stanking dog.' I said,"

"'Wait, while the door was open, I WAS LIKE, YOU JUST WAIT THROUGH IT.'"

"I SAID IT TO ALL THESE WOMEN."

"PEOPLE WAS out there like,"

"because the first thing they did was, 'Oh.' I said, 'Don't let him fool you. He was fussing me out in the car all the way here.' AND AND THEY WERE LIKE,"

"and you know, I'm smiling like"

"I said, 'Don't kiss my butt.'"

"You got to say,"

"I was like,"

"but but but this is the thing, man. And"

"I was two different people."

"Mhm."

"Two different people."

"Mhm."

"Um, and what what's what's really wild is that, you know, I remember doing my first movie and I had major major impostor syndrome cuz I'm not an actor. Listen, man. Only reason I acted is cuz we were broke. We had no money, right? And that's the door that opened."

"We had nothing. People kept saying, 'Man, you got a good look, man. You got a I was like, man, okay, look, I'll never forget. I'm doing security. I I had sweep floors and then I got a job doing security on the movie set. So I'm on this movie. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and I'm I'm guarded. The makeup artist for Arnold walks up and goes, 'Hey man, you got a great look. What are you doing here? You need to be acting.' I was like, 'Uh, Craft Service is that way.' I thought he was hitting on me. So I'm like, 'Hey, hey man, look.' And a year later, I'm in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the makeup artist, the same guy. He says, 'Dude, you told me I should be acting.'"

"Wow."

"And I And he's like, 'Oh my god, I can't believe this is you.'"

"Wow."

"Now I don't But I feel like I'm going to get found out. Yeah. I'm not really of this. I'm going to get found out. I'm going to get messed up."

"Technically, you were. Every time you walked in the door, you got found out."

"I don't know. But but she needed to do that cuz But it it hit me that. But what I'm saying is is just on the set I'm"

"I don't know what to do. I didn't grow up with this. I mean, I had people with my image of all these actors is that they went to school for this and I'm going I'm a old football player and I'm going to y'all going y'all going to fire me. Wait, my whole thing was they going to catch me and they gonna fire me. And I this is how cuz I got caught so many times, right?"

"So I remember being in the hotel and they said, 'Hey Terry, we're not shooting using you for another two weeks. You can fly home.' I said, 'No, I'm not going home. I ain't going home. Dude, I'm thinking they going to get find somebody else to act in my part. I'm feeling so insecure. I stayed in the room for two weeks by myself and this is what happened."

"and it was crazy."

"I was watching porn because I felt so out of place. It was it was like a drug because in order I was like I"

"I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm out here. And then I was on paper. I went to a massage bar. And then that when I knew that it officially had like like put itself into into my life forever."

"And I said, I will never ever tell. I will never forget this. I came home and I was like this is the first time I started to think about suicide and it was a whole it was a dark place."

"I was going to say yeah walk me through that because there's a lot of men out there who have been unfaithful."

"And I said I never crossed that line."

"Right. And I"

"but they but they crossed this line and now they have to they don't they have to look at themselves in the mirror."

"My god."

"What are you what are you processing when you're looking at yourself in the mirror?"

"I I'm I'm just the dirtiest dog. I'm filthy. I'm no good. And this is the thing. The shame, the shame is almost, you can't, you can't get out of it because you, you know, that's why the Bible talks about confessing your sins and this, but I knew I could never tell. And I said, 'This is I'm going to keep this secret for the rest of my life.'"

"And and what happened"

"God told me"

"but but this is how I used to do it when I was a kid when even when I would get into pornography and discovers pornography what I would do is overcompensate."

"I would work out for three weeks straight."

"you know do good on all this thing be the man and I would and then all because it it it's a fuel for many many high achievers are fueled by shame which is a the one thing people don't think about, you know what I mean? Because they've done some things. So now to make up for that, now I'm giving my money away and I'm doing that, but you've done all this dirt that you're trying to cover for. And that's how I felt like, okay, now be the best husband ever."

"And that's what I went home. I said, 'All right.' And I'll never forget, I went to a church in Vancouver right after that. And I I bet you they were wondering what what I was doing, what I was doing there. But I remember just go just crying, crying the whole time. And I went home and I said, 'That's it. Okay, that's behind me.' And there were times she was like, 'Have you ever have you ever cheated on me?' Or and I I just remember going, 'Why are you bringing that up, Ba?' And I would get and what would happen is I would get into an argument so that we wouldn't talk about it. So it would be such a blowup that she would just go, 'Okay.'"

"M."

"Well,"

"but I knew I"

"was on that audition with you."

"Close."

"I was Yeah, I remember"

"he was auditioning for the Mario Van Peebles, the badass movie."

"It was a dramatic role."

"And I'm in the van with the baby with one was it Winnie or some this might have been baby number four. So, I'm in the van with the baby talking to Jesus and I hear your husband has cheated on you and he'll never tell you."

"Wow."

"And I said, 'Well, how am I supposed to prove that, Lord? Like, what do I do with that? Do you have something I can see, I can prove?' And it just came back again. Your husband has cheated on you and he'll never tell you. I'm like, 'Well, what am I supposed to do? What I what do I do with that information?' So, I confronted him and of course, he picked a fight with me."

"And I had this urge to go look through his computer, but I went through the computer, couldn't really find it. And I was like, I'm looking at emails cuz I'm looking for a person."

"Mhm."

"You know, and then I said, God, you're just going to have to show me. I don't know. I don't I don't know what you're asking me to look for. Um I think I'm a better hearer now than I was then, but I finally I said, 'Well, something's wrong. Something's going on.' And he said, 'You'll never prove it.' I said, 'No, why do you say that?' I said, 'Okay, okay. So bet little by little the marriage at that point was starting to crumble a little."

"It wasn't because of my suspicion necessarily."

"Mhm."

"Is because he had become unbearable to live with."

"Why is that? Yeah."

"Be I believe in retrospect it was because of his shame. Because he would come home from work mad all the time. He'd come home from work grumpy. He'd fuss at me. He'd fuss at the kids. He was impatient. He was very self-centered. You know, on the weekends when we should have been hanging out as a family, he's running off to hang out with uh other celebrities and play NBA celebrity basketball. And he's neglecting his children. And I got about two years into that, so I'm leaving this Dimwick. I said, I'll have all these babies for you to not be their daddy."

"And I said, and I just my heart began to get hard. And I began to practice in my mind being divorced."

"Mhm."

"And I and I'd watch him and sometimes I would even trick him on a Saturday morning. I'd get up early and leave the house. Just go shop, go do something to force him to have to be with the children. And he'd be calling me, 'Where you at? I got somewhere to go.' I said, 'No, I'm sorry. I had plans today. I'm sorry. I thought you were going to be home today.' And I would leave him at the house with the kids. And he would call me like 5 6 p.m. you need to get back here cuz I need to go to blah blah blah and that's for work and blah blah blah. Okay, I I'll be back. And I would do these things like, okay, that's going to be our life cuz he's going to have them on Saturday and Sunday and we're going to be a part."

"And as I was in that mental process, we were shooting our shooting our show reality cruise. Yeah. Family cruise. And then the Lord spoke to me. He said, 'You're going to have a new marriage.' And no, he said, 'You're going to have a new man.'"

"I said, 'Praise the Lord.'"

"And he said, 'You're going to have a new man, Rebecca.' I was like, 'Hallelujah. Where is he?' You know?"

"And then a few a week or so after that initial vision, he said, 'You're going to have a new man, but it'll be the old man reborn.'"

"M."

"And I was like, 'Oh, fooly.' I was like, 'I don't believe that.' Okay, maybe. I don't know. I mean, I knew God well enough to trust what he said."

"You think any of that was a defense mechanism because you you were like, 'I don't want to get hurt, you know?'"

"Yeah. I just, you know, I didn't want to trust because see something you got to know when I was um a performer, that was my whole life. My whole dream was doing that."

"Mhm."

"So when I got on my knees and I said, 'God, if that's not your will for me, or what is your will for me? I'm laying this down.' Yeah. And if you want me to go to New York, I'll go. Mhm. What? Where do you want me? I'll go to Bible college. I always wanted to go to Bible college. He said, 'No, don't go to Bible college.'"

"He said, 'I told you already you're going to have a family.'"

"So for me, I laid down my career for this family. Yeah. So now I'm 22 years in the marriage. I'm not just now doing television. I'm just now doing stuff I want to do. And now you're being a fool."

"I guess this is how it's going to end cuz I'm not going to give up my life no more."

"So So there's a moment where you you just confront him and you say, 'What haven't you told me?'"

"I confronted him because he was supposed to be home on a Friday night cuz we always talk on the phone. He was on location and he would come from the set and call me and we would yak yak yak till midnight. So Friday night comes, I don't hear from him. I call him, he's not answering the phone and I get that sick feeling in my stomach like, 'Okay, what the hell?'"

"And I called him again, call him again. Finally, at a time that in my opinion is too late because he's on the East Coast, which means it's midnight where he is. I'm like, 'Where are you and what have you been doing? You know, we always talk on Friday night.' Oh, blah blah blah. Long story short, he had invited the cast members to go out. Nobody wanted to go but the one girl. So, they went to dinner, but they went to dinner at a place he had taken me. And the waitress saw him and darn near cussed him out like she the the little hostess girl goes, 'You want another private booth?' And he goes, 'Oh no, this is not going to look right.' And it was. So I start to cuss him out about this little thing because"

"you told her this. Listen, you got to understand I was all I I was in the mode,"

"but I was picking at him. I was like He's like, 'We went out.' Who? Uh uh uh. You know,"

"but but but again, you you have to understand I I was ready to end it."

"Okay. You're like, 'Oh, yeah.' Because this is the Hollywood story."

"I said, 'This is how this is how it is. Like most of it doesn't work out.' And I went, I guess we we reached the spot where the divorce is imminent and we're just going to have to find our way. And I and I said, I can't tell her. So I saw no end. And then it became I wasn't putting any effort into it. Like you know, it was that's where the the not calling and I just said, I'm just going to get super busy. I'm just going to go all in on Hollywood. like"

"I'mma trade in this for this."

"and man you go do that."

"right and but this was the moment this was the moment like when she kept like she wouldn't stop said what is it like she called a couple times that night the whole thing and I told her what happened and she called back like what else is it"

"you know because that was the thing I thought okay there it is you know And that was the thing, right?"

"Because I kept trying to let it go. Like, okay, that's why I felt funny."

"But then I'd be sitting in bed. The Lord would say, 'Ask him this. Ask him this. Ask him this. Ask him about this city. Ask him. It was like dead on the nails.'"

"Wait. It was like court. It was It was a few good men. You can't handle the truth. You know, I mean, like, not to be funny about it, but what I'm saying is after like the fourth phone call and then let me tell you this, man. This was so crazy. It was a blizzard. And if man, it was a blizzard and it was February 10th, 2010, and it was the biggest blizzard on the East Coast. and she's on the west co but I couldn't go nowhere and I remember I was in a hotel the Mercer Hotel in Soho and it felt like a prison and I remember the it was nothing beautiful about the room it like a cell and she her call just kept coming and I felt the room was getting closer and closer and listen and you got to hear me hear me when I say is God said he said if you don't tell her I'm done with you. He said I'm giving you one shot. If you don't tell her the truth I will never be with you again. This is it. Oh, I've been giving you time and chance and you've been you've been successful this kind of thing and I've been giving you all these opportunities. This is it. And then she called one more time."

"You got to understand."

"Wait."

"I love the Scrooge thing though."

"Go ahead."

"The every hour."

"Yes."

"Oh,"

"go ahead."

"He told me that he'd wake up at midnight."

"Yep."

"Dead at midnight. And God said, 'Tell her.'"

"Tell her."

"He said, 'I can't tell her. a loser.'"

"Can't tell."

"He'd go back to sleep 1:00 a.m. Ding. He woke him up. Tell her."

"like every hour."

"it was like."

"he said 2:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. 5:00 a.m. Finally 6:00 in the morning about is when I maybe maybe 9 when I called."

"But she said, 'What is it I don't know about you, Terry Cruz?'"

"And even that was prophetic. Like this was bubbling out of me. He's lying. He's lying. He's lying. And when he got on the phone, it just rolled out of me like a prophecy. What don't I know about you, Terry Cruz?"

"You got the weight of I've been blessing you. I'm going to remove my hand from this. You You going to have to just deal with you. The blessings is not going to be flowing like they was. What you're living for will come to an end. Your identity will shut down. And then you're like, I know something ain't right. And this these meet each other and then what happens, bro?"

"I told her and you got to say it was 10 years earlier. 99. I had already I still been using pornography, right? But the unfaithful part Yeah. happened 10 years. It was 99. This was 2010."

"Mhm."

"And I said, I went to a massage box and I was on paper, but I told her exactly how I went down. And then I was, 'Okay, God. See, are we good?' And I heard a gasp on the other hand like, 'Oh no. Oh no.' Like cuz I'm like that was 10 years ago. M that's not to her. To her it was one second ago. And I knew it was over. Like it was so over. And I said, 'I'm done.' And she told me, she said, 'You get don't come home. You out. That's it. It's a wrap.'"

"Yeah."

"I said, 'Don't bother coming home and don't miss my payment on the house.' And I said, 'And you get ready to see your kids on the weekend.' You are Gary Indiana to the he"

"I said I don't want none of my bills going down."

"Let me say I gotta say Rebecca has never played any games with me."

"Yeah."

"Ever. I was playing games with her."

"but she never played any games ever. when you say the backbone when people see Terry Cruz and all this but they don't it's her like the back but this is another thing that hit me man cuz for for a quick minute for a quick second I was like okay well you know that this is how it goes this Hollywood this and then I was like I don't care about no damn Hollywood."

"Mhm."

"Wait. Everything that I thought I wanted, I didn't care about no more."

"Who?"

"I was like, that's sober, dude. It was like, what good is any of this?"

"Wow."

"Like, it does mean no good. None of it. Okay. Now, the world can hear you say this, right? But when we when we when we look at the the the the the social media feeds, everyone gets divorced. The guy leaves the woman he started off with and then he goes and finds his Hollywood wife. The Hollywood divorce thing just becomes a reality. People chase the the dream. Why are you sober? Like, why aren't you like, 'All right, well, that's over.'"

"I'm going tell you why. And once I called my friend and he said, 'Hey, man.' And I knew I said, 'Man,' I told him what just happened. And this was Pastor um Jim Reed, who's one of my good good friends. He's just an amazing person. He's like, 'And one thing I realized is that this is not the first thing, you know, like this happens in the church a lot.'"

"Mhm."

"you know, uh, and he said, 'Hey, man. I cannot promise you you can get your you're going to get your wife and family back, but you need to get better for you.' Now, understand how that sounded cuz I had never I had done everything I had done up to that point was for rewards, for like what I call Scooby snacks. You do good to do this, you do good to that, you get this. You know, you you do this and all of a sudden you're supposed to get this back. You know, you cash in, cash out."

"Yeah."

"Here, you just give to be giving."

"Mhm."

"You have to do this in order to be who you are."

"Which totally changed everything. And I was like, get better for me because it wasn't really about her going to earn earned, right? What? Cuz this is the thing. Let me Okay, let me do all I can to get you back. That's not That's not a motivation."

"Whether you first of all get back or you don't, you got to be."

"You understand, right? Listen, man. Because you could be the same dude and you just you can run the same tricks, right?"

"And I was like, cuz I knew it was over, right? I knew it was over. I I was like, that's not going to happen. I I didn't think we were ever going to come. I I didn't think we could ever recover that."

"Mhm."

"And so I decided I said, 'Now you understand, I had never I had always been in church and the church don't talk about this stuff.'"

"Mhm."

"They never talked about it. I've been to church my whole life and had this pornography addiction and they never talked about nothing. I never went to one sermon where they were like, 'Pornography.'"

"So I said, 'I gotta go where they're dealing with this stuff.' M and I went to a place called psychological counseling services that deals with people who are in ministry that have fault."

"Mhm."

"Yeah."

"Or like entertainers or you know are you embarrassed that cuz everyone knows you."

"beyond."

"Terry Cruz walks in the doors pastor so and so Mr. So and so and then it's Terry Cruz."

"I said I can't do this. I said, 'Well, but do you want to get better for you or you can have to Hollywood?' And I went, 'Oh, no. You gota understand Hollywood has always been like, come on, man.'"

"Well, and I."

"don't worry about that."

"Can I say too that I was shocked that he went to rehab because this is a man that I watched for 20ome years protect his image. He's very image conscious. Yeah. Very im even his kids would call him Mr. Image. Dad, you're being Mr. Image. That was it was like a joke at our house. And um when we spoke and he told me that some our it was actually our marriage counselor that told him that's an addiction. You need to go do an impatient. And he called me and told me that. I said, 'Oh yeah, everything's an addiction.' You know,"

"uh, but prior to that conversation, the Holy Spirit had been dealing with me and had me reading. So again, reading certain books. Um, I said, 'God, you told me to throw because God told me to throw him out.' And I said, 'God, you told me to throw him out.' He said, 'I'm asking you to give him a shot.'"

"Mhm."

"If he's not better in a year or two, you can leave."

"Mhm."

"And I said, 'Okay, okay.' So, and that that really was like my little waterlue because I had told my husband from the day I met him that if you ever cheat, I'll leave you. I watched my mother deal with a cheating husband. Mhm. This is what I knew, right? So, it's like, I'm definitely not telling you cuz I know the rats, but this is what I knew. And so, when I told I said this,"

"and I knew from that conversation when I first said, you know, don't come home. Then he gasped cuz he didn't think I would leave him. And he goes, you said we could work things out. I told you the truth. I said, yeah, now and now I'm done."

"I'm done."

"And I was done. Every like God was with me. I felt strong. I felt like peace in my soul. God said, 'I'm with you.' He said, 'I'll take care of you, Rebecca.'"

"Mhm."

"He said, 'But let's wait and see.' And I said, 'What do you mean, Lord?' He said, 'Let's see if he'll turn.'"

"And he said, 'We're going to wait.' So, for like three days, I never came out of this bathroom. I was just like a dead person. I was like Lazarus in the tomb, dead. My kids were feeding them. Well, I had teenagers. So, the teenagers are helping with the little kids. And"

"how are they navigating this?"

"They didn't know anything. They"

"So, they're just like, 'Something's not right. They don't know what it is. Something's wrong.'"

"I wasn't even conscious of what they could feel cuz I was in shock."

"I saw I'm getting divorced. God dang it."

"Did y'all ever have a combo with them and say, 'Hey,'"

"later."

"Yeah. Later. Yeah."

"Oh, yeah."

"But in this small window, God began to deal with me about forgiveness. M. And I said, 'But God, you said to end the marriage.'"

"Mhm."

"And he said, 'I know, Rebecca.' He said, 'But do you remember back 3 months ago when I said you're going to have a new husband?'"

"He said, 'I want you to put this scripture on the wall.' And it was the verse from the resurrection of Jesus. He is not here. He is risen. Why are you look for the living among the dead? Woo."

"And that was on my wall for months and other scriptures, but that one he said, 'This is a new man, Rebecca, because he repented.' And I could feel the spirit of God. And I was weeping in my house. And the the father was weeping. And he said, 'I have my son back, Rebecca. I have my son back.' And he said, 'And I want you to forgive him.' And I said I said, 'Jesus, I cannot do that.' I said, 'I cannot do that.' I said, 'Because you knew that's the one thing I couldn't forgive.' And he said, I said, 'I would be a fool to forgive him.' And he said, 'Then I'm the biggest fool in the universe.' And I just went, 'Oh my god.'"

"He said, 'Cuz I forgave all humanity, Rebecca. I forgive them all.' And I was like, 'Oh my god.' And he said, he said, 'This is the highest level of Christianity is forgiving those who wrong you.'"

"And I went, 'Oh, Lord, but you're asking me to to take him back?' And he said, he said, 'Give him a chance. All I'm asking is give him a chance. And if he doesn't turn his life around, you can leave.'"

"And there's an old song, God always deals with me in songs. And there's an old song by Natalie Kohl's and the lyrics says, 'I'm keeping a light shining in the window in case he decides to come home.' And God said, 'I'm keeping that light.' He said, 'That light is my spirit, Rebecca.' And and and and let's see if he'll repent or if he'll harden his heart. M"

"and one day I was walking through the house in that robe and I saw a sketch of a man laying on the floor. It was a sketch he'd done from art class and Isaiah was playing with the book and I saw the sketch and the Holy Spirit said something to me that was very profound. He said, 'Rebecca, that's Terry right now. He is flat on his face. He is despondent, but he's listening.' and he said, 'Call him right now.' And I was like, 'I'm not calling him.' Then it was like something grabbed me like by my stern. I'm like, 'Call him.' I said, 'Yes, sir.'"

"Mhm."

"And we had that conversation about rehab. And I said, 'Well, I don't know that sounds a little far out, you know, but he got on a plane and went to rehab.' And that shocked me because like I said, I've never seen him be vulnerable with people, be open, and he's going to go where these people are going to know who he is and tell all his pro. I didn't believe it. I still didn't believe it. I sat there going, he'll be home, and he's not going to do that. He went there was 10 days."

"Yeah."

"10 days. He came home a completely different person. Lrae, he was so broken. after all this uh discussion about his past and all the vulnerability um I wasn't ready to deal with him like that."

"Mhm."

"I was still angry. I was still very, you know, much like I'm still walking out of here if you don't do right."

"Right. And and that's a part of the process that's very hard for women to understand is that that metamorphosis, that growth that's going on inside, it's not instantaneous."

"Mhm."

"And so as you're trying to repair a marriage or you're trying to build something back together, for a period of time, it looks demolished. Yeah. And and we used to say that we're living in this demolished house and then little by little you rebuild the house."

"Beauty from ashes."

"And I'm telling you it was really hell. It was it was really hell. I mean we"

"it was."

"I would have screaming fits at him."

"How many How many years is this of just."

"about two to three years?"

"Right."

"Good. Good three years. Three years. I think people need to know that we and I say that because a lot of times people will look at his side of this situation and say, 'Oh, wow. That had to be crazy. The whole world knows your business and all this and man, it had to be hard.' But they're not thinking about the trauma that Yeah. a a person who has been betrayed Yes. has to experience. And now you have to live through that trauma every day, right? And see the person who created the trauma. And then the person who created the trauma has to see the person that he betrayed. And it's like, brother, I would come home and she'd be sitting there crying. And I know I did it. And I I couldn't say anything. There was times I just couldn't say anything. I just we just be sitting there and kids were just kind of milling about and and I just going, you know, we just sat in darkness like there were times I would wake up and she'd be standing over me."

"He thought I was going to stab him. I was just looking at him like talking to God like, 'Lord, is he going to really?'"

"No, but I but I know and I but I was ready like I said this is it. M yeah like to me this is it and I don't want the other stuff. See, this the thing. It It It's almost like um I was on that mountain where it's like, 'Hey, if you just do this, devil's like, I'll give you all this.' And I'm like, 'No, no, I know now.'"

"Mhm."

"Like,"

"all that is a distraction,"

"all this other stuff. And I really didn't care about anything else anymore. I I was just going I need to be a whole person because I was two and being whole was the for the first time in my life having no secrets."

"Mhm."

"Yeah."

"Like it was strange. It was weird. But I I didn't know me."

"Mhm."

"This I I'll go to we we were I'll never forget."

"Yeah."

"We were uh I was watching Lean on Me with M Morgan Freeman. I couldn't stop crying. I mean couldn't stop. I bought like."

"I remember."

"and I couldn't remember. I was like why am I crying so much? It was like, it was showing me like Morgan Freeman was like, 'God, prot when he kicked all those people out of the gym so that the other people could study and do that thing.' He was like, 'That's what I'm doing for you right now.' And I was I cried, man. I couldn't stop crying, but I knew God was protecting me. He said, 'I'm going to rebuild you, man.' And remember, it's not about getting her back."

"That's her choice."

"And I have to say, it could have went either way."

"And I'll be real honest. Would she been wrong to get a divorce? No."

"No."

"Mhm."

"I'm going say that."

"Mhm."

"It was her choice."

"If she has decided that's not me,"

"and I would have been I had to I had to be fine with that."

"Yeah. And we and we were both I mean, we both had our childhood wounds. So, we both had rejection fears or rejection. We both had abandonment fears."

"So, say if I got up in the middle of the night and I was troubled and I'd go sleep in the other master."

"He'd wake up and I'm gone and he'd go run around the house looking for me."

"And he'd come in there, Becky, where why' you leave? Why'd you leave? I said, 'Honey, I just had to think and I just had to talk to Jesus.' And every time I'd look at you, I'd get mad. So, I just said, 'Let me leave the room.'"

"And he's like, 'Honey, I'm trying. I'm trying. Please don't give up on me.' And I would say, 'I'm not, but I just,' it was just hard. It was just hard. So his fear of me leaving him was strong. My fear of him leaving me was strong. I mean, we And then I think there were probably um three or four times that we said, 'We're done.'"

"Yeah."

"We're we're we're done. We can't make it through this."

"And then like half hour later, he called me. I can't live without you. I can't live. I'm at the nail salon sobbing, you know, because the actual thought of really ending it, neither of us felt like we could live with that. And so we I say we just rocked and rolled for three years between the Holy Spirit, the counselors, and us and the books, we just held on. True."

"And and and even when God first I asked God, I said, 'God, what if he's like, you know, Saul, and even though you called him to be my husband, he has done this and now we're never going to be what you called us to be.' He said, 'Rebecca, I want you to know that Terry is more like David than Saul.'"

"And I said, 'Are you sure?'"

"He said, 'All I want you to do is observe him. observe him and you'll see there's new fruit. And there was a test where we were at a restaurant and Terry used to fly off the handle. I'm not kidding. His anger was like like what do you call that? Infamous. Yep. Caught him steroids. Yeah. Well, but no. No. It was all that fightness. Yeah. But but uh he would go off if the kids spill something on the table or what and I would have to calm him down, get the baby. I would ma, you know, I'm managing because I'm trying to protect the kids, right? And not disrespect him. So I'm like, 'Babe, I got it, you know, and my son spilled his smoothie all over this table at a restaurant. So, god forbid it was a public place, he'd really go off and that would be embarrassing to all of us. And we had a lot of those memories. And my son spilled that smoothie. And all of us, the kid, I looked around the the teenagers and the young, we went and Terry goes, 'It's okay, little man.'"

"Well, he was different."

"He was different."

"You were changed."

"I got up and went to the bathroom, called my college roommate, Muriel. She's my prayer partner. I said, 'Muriel, he didn't scream at the kids.' Mhm. She's like, 'Praise God, girl. We going to keep interceding. We going to keep interceding.' And I watched him become what I call the gent kindler gentler and kinder version of Terry Cruz."

"So, he he did become a new person."

"He did. He did."

"Um, first of all, let me say this. Y'all are dismantling the mystique of Hollywood with this conversation."

"Oh, yeah."

"Um because there's so much humanity in it. And I I think people on the outside looking in, people on the outside looking in are like you got the accolades, the awards, the money. Um move on with your life. You got, you know, this financial bed of security if you if you don't. We seen NBA Wives and all the the TV shows, right? I could leave and still have money. You've been You got money and you can live your best life. And if we've seen this play out, right? I've had that fantasy. Trusting belief. And then you know what I always do? I'm like, but I don't want him happy."

"No, I know it sounds stupid, but like I've had that fantasy. Oh, I get I I take half. I'll take the half the rest of my life. Go do what I want to do. But then I look over there and he got some little girlfriend and I go, 'That would be a shame because I know the gift that's on this man. I know the call that's on this man. I know what God's doing with him and going to do with him.'"

"And I said, 'God, it would be a shame for him to kind of end up like that because I don't think that anybody would love him like I did.'"

"Wow."

"How could they?"

"Wow."

"I chose him when he didn't have anything. And I chose him cuz God said he was my husband."

"Now there's some biblical proportion type of stuff. This some Hosea Gomer type like I know you whing or you're broken but God has called me to be with you. A lot of people won't understand that."

"Talk about I'm."

"and not to say God hasn't given me an out cuz he has."

"But but but the criticism that you faced."

"Oh yeah."

"from people cuz you know the outside looking in it's like there's no grace for an adulterous man. There's no grace. Not on the women. No, the men are graceful. But the women aren't."

"This but it's just like oh you done. We wrote you off. Yeah. But a woman who stays is like oh you you weak. Oh you she can't. You just letting him run all over you. I bet that check is nice girl. That's why you staying. talk to the people who have that vantage point."

"Um, well, first of all, I would say that if you think divorce is fun, talk to people who've gone through it, okay? First of all, and I can't tell you the amount of times I've wanted to just throw the towel in. Um, and then I sat with God and talked about what that would look like. And when I saw the vision of that future, it grieved me. It broke my heart cuz there's kids involved. There's family and there's destiny."

"Because God has a good, acceptable, and perfect will. Now, I don't know about you, I'm trying to get to the perfect thing. Now, come on now. Okay. I ain't trying to be half in, half like they say, half in, half out."

"99 half won't do. I just am the kind of person, anything I put my feet to, my hands to, I'm going with all my heart. Yeah. And I gave Jesus all my heart. Yeah. And so when I see that, I see that as a failure to do the will of God. Now, if he wants to fail doing the will of God, he can go ahead on. I'm going to do what I believe is right. That's good. Okay. So, that's how I feel about it. Now, has God ever sat me down and said, 'You can leave.' Yes, he has."

"Because there are times I have cried and prayed and said, 'He's better, Lord, but he could be more.' Yeah. And he goes, 'Well, you need to tell him that and you need to be honest with him because you're too sometimes protective of his feelings or you don't want to have the argument, but you need to tell him that.' And so, we have those conversations. We've had them recently. You know,"

"staying isn't right or wrong. It's wise or unwise, right? It's a matter of right. It's a matter of perspective. Um, but I say this, when I first did uh some television around this subject, um, the feedback was always, 'Wow, wow, wow, wow.' Right? The women and the men were like, 'Oh my gosh, you know, this is like a miracle. This is amazing.' Down toward the bottom of the comments, I started to get the,"

"H, I wouldn't have done that." You know, kind of stuff.

And I understood how they feel, too.

Because if his response had been different...

Yes. I would have had to just if there had not been repentance on his part that then we would have had but and then even though there was I could have still said whatever.

Yeah.

You know but for me I know when I spoke to God about Terry everything he said to me about him was believe have faith. don't, you know, don't judge him on this.

And I remember we were at a hotel in Atlanta. Um, and it was one of those kind of budwois rooms, you know, it looked like other people used it for other things.

Uhhuh.

And I stepped out of the bathroom, I think, and his shoes were sitting by the door. And God said, "Put your feet in his shoes." And I put my feet inside his shoes. He said, "Walk around the room." And I walked around the room and then he had me sit on the couch in front of the TV. He said, "Now, Rebecca, if you were alone as much as he is, and you were on the road as much as he is, you could have very easily done that and worse."

And he reminded me of my own emotional weaknesses, my own brokenness, and my own wild time. He said, "Please just understand that it wasn't his heart to hurt you, cuz he could have done worse." This what the Lord said. He said, "How many people, you know, they got whole other kids, families, all this." He said he could have done worse. So, I want you to put it in a perspective about what you feel is unforgivable.

Let's just give you your award of grace. Oh, grace.

It's not Listen, I listen hear me. But the grace came from Jesus.

Amen.

Because he...

Amen.

Because he gave me those perspectives. He He put that l like see it this way, Rebecca. Don't see it as he said because you know anybody who lies to you cares about losing you.

And he said, whoa. He said, "A man who is disrespecting his wife rubs it in her face." And I have a friend who went through that, you know, where he blatantly like just rubbed in her face the stuff he was doing. And he said, "Rebecca," he said, he said, "If you can't forgive this man, how will you go on and ever love someone else even if you tried that? Even if you wanted to start over. So whether you keep him or whether you leave, you got to forgive him."

That's powerful.

So I went through that journey in my heart, for my good.

Now, now what is what is Hollywood saying to y'all behind the scenes? Because we know what the comments say and so on and so forth, but behind the scenes, what don't we know about y'all being this transparent?

Well, I don't. First of all, you know, I've been in it, but not of it, especially now.

Uh, you end up...

Yeah. Our closest friends aren't all necessarily famous people.

Right. Yeah.

But, but again, I mean, I I do a movie and I go home.

Okay.

You know, I do shows and I'm back at the house. Um, I'm out in all over the world and then I go right back home. So now it's work and it is and it it's a privilege you know but remember you have to understand when this started to happen we we were on a whole another thing right so I said I remember we were on the sixth anniversary of what we call D-Day which is this day, six years in 2016 and one day after that I had an epiphany I said I said you know going to group is a way to deal with a lot of addiction issues because then you could share you because again you're only as sick as your secret. So as long as it remains a secret it you know it get it grows stronger. It's like putting dirt under the carpet. It just gets stinkier and nastier and bad. But you got to expose that stuff. It's got to go out to the sun. It's got to get cleaned. didn't real.

And I said, "So, what's the biggest group ever?" I said, "Facebook." Now, I was given Facebook Live. I was a early adopter. Like, they gave me a You can go live. Remember, this was unheard of.

Used to be right.

It was unheard of 2016. Now, you got Instagram live, you got Tik Tok live, you got all but they said you can go live on Facebook to the whole world. I said, "That's the group." I was leaving the gym. I got in there and I said,

"I remember that."

I said, "Guys, I want to tell y'all something. I was addicted to pornography for the longest time." It and it was called Dirty Little Secret.

You can look it up on YouTube right now.

That was the moment. It was the day after the cuz it struck it. I said,

"This is my burn the boats, man."

Yeah. Burn the boats. There's no way back.

Yeah.

I'm not going back. I'll never be that dude again because we've been through all and I I said these boats got to be burned. But also other people have to know what this is.

Mhmm.

And I I just share now I was in the middle of a giant Old Spice campaign. Huge. I mean I did was about 10 years but it was like by Super Bowls and all that dude they call everybody. I mean, the next day I was all four press outlets, Today Show, every every talk show, every every network, they were like, Terry Cruz addicted to pornography. He would he would fly to New York and talk through it? I said, look at the video.

I said, ain't nothing else I could say.

I said, I'm not flying anywhere. I said, it is what it is. The old Spice said, we got to let him go. listen by agent call everybody and I was already on the show and then and then people were like Brooklyn unnot people were like we got to let him go.

And it was like a gossip fest like all the news reporters were like we searched his life's Instagram and all it says is I love you honey we don't know what Rebecca think I mean they it was like...

Oh, they were having day. It was like...

Good Morning America became like TMZ.

They were pre like Twitter was still in but but it Facebook like and then they were like and everything was big and I was like...

Yeah, we were on every network the following morning.

But listen to me listen to me I was like, I'm good. Like I didn't care. Wait when old said we got to let him go and I told my agent I said I understand I said totally understand.

And and people talking about we got to fire him I said then that's it then we're out got me and I said but see you got to Oh, I listen. I had that choice six years earlier. Do you want the Hollywood stuff? Do you want that? And I said, "No, no, no, no. I want this. I want this. This is what I want." And I had to prove it. And see, this is another thing. Love is unconditional. Unconditional. The only thing that's unconditional is love. Everything else is conditional.

Trust, energy, time. And I had to p I had no I said and see you understand me being with her is conditional.

She had to see...

I wasn't playing. She had to know this negro is not playing with me.

And I said I am going to earn this trust back.

It's not enough to just say you're sorry. It's not enough to just say my bad.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's not enough to be like, uh, sorry about that.

And that is another Christian misnomer that you you just have to repent to God. Say you're sorry to the person, you know.

No. The rebuilding of their trust if you want to rebuild the relationship that is most definitely earned and is not a slipp.

She had to see everything, know everything, access to everything.

He passed through lie detector.

Oh, we went through everything. When I say everything, everything sitting there with the This man had my whole future in his. If he could have said he lied, she'd have it been out.

I heard someone say trust is lost in oceans and gained in buckets.

You can lose it like this. You got to trust, trust, trust, trust, trust.

And all God asked me to do was give him a chance. He said, "I'm not even going to ask you to promise him anything."

He said, "I'm asking you to promise me that you'll give him a try. You just give him a try. See if he's not a better if you can't live with him in 3 years, I'll walk you right out the door." He said,

"But see you."

And you mentioned the Hollywood thing.

Mhmm.

Because this is what Hollywood was. The Hollywood wants the image.

Yeah.

But I was not an image anymore.

I was a whole person.

So if you can't take me like this,

Yeah.

you don't get me. And wait, I I got to tell you how it works. Go ahead.

Well, no, because they went, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He didn't do nothing. He was just talking about him going to rehab and what he did." And but it wasn't like he was caught cuz he's tal he said it.

And he said he was being just honest, man. Give me his job back. I went and did Old Spice for six more years.

Wow.

I went and like my now my career went bam cuz people were like if it ain't if he be honest about that they're like well cuz they were like he he's a real person. Wait wait wait authenticity.

Bro, you can't get more authentic than your own junk. Can I now this is kind of a sidebar question. I'm just curious cuz you've you've been authentic about a lot of stuff. When you start seeing the era we're in now with like Epstein files coming out and all of this type of stuff, how do you perceive it all?

Wow. Now, we got to go back to the second big event in our life.

Oh, yeah. The lawsuit.

Which was we were we were in you got to understand we were into...

How many years in?

Well, it was 2017 when it went down. That was 2016. It was like the same year.

16.

2016. So, it was right after we had went public. Well, we were at I was doing movies and only thing, but I went to an event and this agent molested me. Now, you got to understand, man, and I'm talking about Hollywood. This is facts. Now, you can look it up.

Mhmm.

William Morris Endeavor, this man was the head of the movie department. He had Eddie Murphy, Sly Stallone, Sandler. He was his agent. He would get high and do whatever he wanted to do. Crazy stuff.

Yeah.

The the the CFO of William Morris Endeavor. A man died in his home dungeon.

In his home dungeon. I'm gonna tell you that. I'm not saying this to to just I'm not it's not a fake. It's not nothing. You can look it up right now.

They might have swept it off the internet.

Yeah. No, it's it's it's true. And wait, the police didn't even the police man dead.

But the police didn't do nothing. What is that? This Hollywood. All this stuff is going this people got whole bunch of stuff going on, right? And this and I we walked in on it.

We literally at this party this guy comes and he grabbing me, man. And I'm going, "Get off me, man. What are you doing?"

The man was high on something.

He's on some. I'm like, "Yo, I'm not that. I'm not the dude." And now here I'm the only black man in this whole party. Like I'm a boy. Yes. You know what I mean? Like...

I am not part of your you know that party...

Fan club. Yeah.

Bro. Wait. And so when he he literally was like, man, I was about to kill him, but God was listening all this therapy.

See, cuz she had seen...

See, listen, man. God was preparing us for something.

Terry Terry got in fights every year.

She seen me throw people over her head. Okay.

We were in Oldtown Pasadena and he was fighting three dudes at once on a Friday night.

It was hundreds of people everywhere cuz they...

But this is what happened. And this is where we talk about Hollywood and and the next thing when this happens, I'll never forget. I just felt so emasculated. And I was like driving home and she was like, "I'm proud of you, Terry. I'm proud of you. I'm proud." She kept saying it. And so...

I Yeah, cuz remember I the Mike Tyson story.

Right? But but I want to I know we got a little bit of time, but I I wanted to say this because when he called me the next day, you didn't call me up. My bad.

Wow.

Huh? Wow.

Bro. Remember I told you, hey, wait. If somebody tries to get your trust unconditionally...

Oh, yeah.

Hey, man.

Oh, no.

You... That does not work.

Mhmm. Yeah.

I said, "That doesn't work." I said, "I'm your I have given y'all millions of dollars and you embarrass me in that way in front of my wife, in front of this whole thing." And you going to say, "My bad. You slipped up and that's it."

And wait, and I went to the high I went to the heads. I went to everybody and they told me like.

And the head of William Morris Endeavor looked at me and said I said, "Bro, I can't let this happen." And he said, "Give it your best shot."

Yeah. Do what you got to do.

You understand how evil that is? If I'm your You tell me I work for you. When you That That is the thing. You're telling me you I'm not I'm paying you, but yet you still my slate.

Mhmm.

You're the goyam.

You know what I mean? And I'm like, "Hey, man."

So I went I already went public before. I said, "Okay, okay." So, we went public together. We went on a whole thing. You can't do this. You can't do it. Sexual assault is real. This and we was on Dr. Phil. We was on Today Show. We was on this. I said, and I and I told I said, "You cannot." I said, "Hey, man. This dude." And when I went and I did those tweets because what happened is the Me Too movement happened. I said, "This happened to me."

And everybody went, "What?" And you got understand had I not been through what we have been through I would have never see because that's the thing everybody wants secrets if I had secrets, you ain't telling you can't talk freely.

But I had no I was a whole person and I said no no one can go you got to understand how many people got off the pl the plane the truck or the bus in Hollywood and got molested and sent away.

And and nobody body believe what they were saying. No, you know what's fun? I don't mean not to cut you off, but my first foray because you know I'm in I'm on the Christian side, but I'm also meandering on the mainstream side and I have a mainstream publicist and they're like, "Hey, we got you this song with so and so. We got this. We got this." This woman wants you on her show, but she's very attracted to you. Can you flirt with her a little bit? She's gonna flirt with you. I need you to just go along with it so we can make this happen. And I that was my first like wait this is real.

Real real.

So anyway and bro we went and it was it was crazy. Everybody was like how can Terry Cruz get molested? He's giant. He's big. How is this? He's big. Yeah.

Hey, you know because you chose to not destroy his...

Crush his head.

Hey. Well Well and the thing is the thing is is that even if I did, does that mean I didn't get molested? That's true.

See, that's true.

People want to say this, man. I started to examine it. And you have to examine it, too, because I saw him and I saw this agent as another person caught in an addiction.

You see, I didn't see I saw it for what it was. Here's a man who had secrets he couldn't get out of. And he he got all these clients and he risked it all. You understand what I mean? That's the that's what the addiction does. You go, why would I risk this? And that's what people don't understand the the Epstein stuff because what happens it grows and grows and you see the secrecy.

And it grew and it was under the carpet until the files got open and it stank and it's nasty and you see how rank and foul it gets because they all waited and were hoping one day like I used to.

Like I you literally Literally the world was like, "What is it we don't know about y'all?"

Just like she asked me and all of a sudden, remember it will be revealed.

Yeah.

It what? No matter where you are, it will. And I listen, I'm not pointing fingers at nobody.

Yeah.

I've always said me me I was guilty guilty guilty guilty.

It's not my job to call people out. It's never never been my job.

Mhmm.

The only reason I said the thing about William Morris is that they said they did nothing wrong and I and I sued them. Bro, I spent half a million. We spent a half a million dollars of our own money. And let me tell you, I would go to home and I said, "Babe, we can't do this." And wait, and when I did the tweets, I knew Hollywood was over again.

Cuz everybody was like, "Terry, you you went up against William Morris Endeavor, the biggest agency in Hollywood." I said,

"You wouldn't believe the big names that emailed and texted and called us asking him to drop it."

Yep. Big. And I was like, "Nope. Nope. Nope. We out."

And we were tapped and we were harassed and we were gangstalked. And...

How long this process take?

Oh, it was a two-year process. Wait, wait, man. I got calls from the heads of the people and they're like, "Look, Terry, you don't want to do this." I was like, "Man, yes, I do. and don't call me again. Lose my number, bro. Now, that's to come to that's why I said God is on your side.

But remember now you got to understand you got to understand I was already saying it's over. I came home to her and I said Hollywood's done. Remember that. We're done. We're done.

Yeah.

Dude, you know what happened? I got more got more work.

I got more. God gave me more. It went bigger. it got people were like this is what we're talking he's saying it he's been saying it and wait we we suspected it and wait and let me tell you this is what happened and even when they tried to deny it I was the half million dollar I said I'll I'll spend a million dollars to win one buck.

And that's what I would c I would constantly say that I will spend a million dollar just to win that $1 that they owe me it's not about money.

This wasn't about this was about I'm going to taking a we got to take a stand.

For all the people who couldn't imagine all the little girls that couldn't say nothing.

Mhmm.

All the people that the men that have been molested. I ain't even talking about the women. I'm talking about the guys that have been molested and whatever and sent away and then yeah, we don't believe you.

That's good.

I said I we have to make this stand. And you know what happened? All these people came and joined.

Other victims of this man. Join.

And we didn't go. They they said we don't want to be a public facing.

But we'll join you. And I said oh. It was like 13 people.

And wait, William Moyes was like, "We quit. We quit. Here, we'll give you your money back." He got him out of there. Before they said, "There's no way he could leave. He's a partner." And then I was like, "Mhm. Can he leave now?" It was like,

"Yeah."

Yikes.

And God stood up for us.

Yeah.

Wait. And not only did we get our money back from that cuz we didn't we didn't have to go to court, but God was like, "Um, now you get a hundred times."

M.

You see I go man.

When and it's so wild because by making that stand I've had people who've given me jobs and said dude, you know why we hired you because what you did because you we know who you are. We know cuz you risked everything. But see people don't know this. I would go to her and she was like, "Terry, ain't nobody ain't no woman in your life ain't been through what you just been through.

Molested, buelt up, been told, ain't nobody going to believe you."

Mhmm.

She said, "Every woman in your life, so let me tell you what to do." And we we have a conferences about, "All right, okay, we going to do this. We going to do this. We're going to We did Dr. Bill together. We did all anything we could do together, we did." But then but then it came back to well he came out about his stuff.

Yeah.

And let me tell you it just we saw this for what it really was like God was leading us. You don't know.

You don't know where God is taking you but you got to be willing.

And I want to say that too that in the beginning when I'm still in the throws of do I hang in here? Do I get out? All the things that he became were prophesied to me.

I was the father the father said he said it will be his ministry because he will teach men how to be pure, how to be whole, how to love their wives. He said, "Rebecca," he said, "you think this is the worst thing that ever happened to you, but this is the bedrock of your ministry." I said, "Whoa."

And like they say, you don't you don't choose your cross or your resurrection.

We were on an...

It chooses you.

We were on...

And I said, we were on an anniversary trip. I remember we went and I said, "Abe, I am now the man you prayed for.

M.

This is the man you've been praying for. The one which is when God said the new man is I said this is it.

And I knew it.

Yeah.

I knew it.

I mean even when we were friends and I would argue with the Lord. I was like um he's younger than me. He doesn't have a job. He's fresh out of his mama's basement. Why are you giving me this boy?

God said the man you prayed for is in that boy. And he said, "You trust me, you will see everything I have told you will come to pass. Everything God has ever said over our lives, except for a few things that are still in the future, lifestyles of rich and famous, we've done it.

All of it." Even from where the the breakup and God said, "This will be a ministry. It's all everything has come to pass." I got to say I am way more grateful for y'all than I was when I walked in this room. Um I know y'all got places to be so I don't want to uh occupy our time, but I'm I'm eternally grateful for y'all and and if there's ever anything I can do in my little small ways, whatever it is, if it's a tweet, if it's whatever, uh y'all have my allegiance and and commitment. I'm eternally grateful for y'all.

Hey, I enjoy We enjoy telling this. We We do because this is what we This is what it is. People have to know.

Yeah.

People People have to know like, "Oh, wow. There that's possible." See, I always I always say this like God told me a long time ago like for me, he said, "You exist to show what's possible." Always always remember that. I give you this so you can show what's possible because nobody could ever say, you know, it'll always work go down or it'll always fail. No.

No.

You can point to us and be like, that didn't that didn't fall down. And you got to understand, too, I don't care what nobody else says.

Yeah.

I'm this is this is it.

Yeah.

This is me and her, man.

Over the horizon.

This is it.

I've seen it all.

I rather have this.

That's it. I I I know not to be too long, but I when I was in high school, I I had we were supposed to go to state and I stole the ball. It was 5 seconds left and we were down by two and I took the shot and I missed and I thought my whole world was going to be over. It was state championship and I thought everything was I said, "Oh Lord, this I'll never ever overcome this." Dude, guess what? Nobody ever thinks about that game. Nobody ever thinks about that. Nobody even remembers it. room. Nobody's going to remember my movies. Nobody's going to remember my television shows. No one. This blockbuster is full of stuff no one is ever going to remember.

But you'll never forget this. You will never forget this. This here goes way. It's beyond. It's stronger. It lasts longer. It's a legacy.

That's good. All the Hey, as great as all these fun and be all the money is gonna go somebody else.

This nice watch, I gotta give it up when I die. Somebody, my kids might sell it. Everything you got, you can't take.

But I can take this.

I could take this with me. This relationship with this woman, God is going to look and go, "Now that this is forever. We'll be up in heaven." like, "Hey y'all." You know what I mean?

Although he said he going to have his own house.

Cuz we like different [ __ ].

I'll be on that galaxy over here, you know? You know?

No.

That's y'all real, man. Like, y'all are just a per per Yeah. We need more of y'all in existence. But there are there Hold on. There are We got We have people really helping us.

Yeah.

I'm out here. We didn't. We have some people that were like, "Yo, spoke honestly speaking."

It's just they, you know, again, the internet goes off negativity. It goes off all that. But it's there's so many good people out there saying great things. Look at you, man.

What I'm saying is is that...

It's what you focus on. It's the algorithm, so to speak.

Right?

You know what I mean? And it it's not as dark as you think.

That's good.

You know what I mean? And that's what I I I want to really say this cuz we have people spoke into us, man.

Right.

People grabbed both of us and said, "Hey, you know what? You got here."

It's like, "Whoa, thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Yeah.

Yeah. I overcome a lot. And the struggle people I'm ready to run through a wall.

Lord, what else?

Thank you. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

Well, man, I thank y'all so much, man.

You got it. You got it.

As y'all y'all blessed us. All right. Thank you. All right.