Tyrese Shares Why He Lost To Terrance Howard For Movie Gigs

Tyrese Gibson is opening up about some of his experiences with colorism in Hollywood and why he thinks he may have lost roles to fellow actor and friend, Terrence Howard. 

Appearing on the radio show Leah’s Lemonade, the 42-year-old F9 actor discussed some of the truths of Hollywood. 

“Terrence Howard has no idea how many roles that I was about to book and they went with him because he’s the lighter-skinned black man with the green eyes,” he said. “It’s crazy to me, like, I’m No. 1. I’m the star. I’m this blue-black, you know, all of the things that I was laughed about in the ‘hood.”

Also adding, “And then you look at Lupita [Nyong’o] and the Viola Davises of the world, and there is this kind of, this shift that has happened. I think we should all stay humble because it’s interesting how white people created this kind of colorism. The mixed-race gets to be in the house and the black blacks get to work in the hot sun and pick cotton.”

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There is no bad blood between the Hollywood stars, Gibson also notes that he recommended the actor for their upcoming thriller The System.

“We’re able to joke about it now. I was the star of the film. They had an idea to go with someone else, who I won’t mention, and then I suggested Terrence Howard,” the “Transformers” actor explained. “And he thanked me for like, a week straight.”

The R&B singer turned actor also revealed how he also experienced colorism growing up. 

“Throughout my whole childhood, it was not cool to be dark skin in the hood. It was always the light-skinned black people that seemed to have gotten all the attention and all the love and considered pretty, or attractive, or handsome,” he said. “And since I’ve been in Hollywood we dealt with the same thing.”