Terry Crews is defending ‘America's Got Talent’ after Gabrielle Union's claims

Terry is speaking out. As the investigation into claims of racism and sexism on the America’s Got Talent set continue, host and all-around nice guy Terry Crews is speaking out about his own experiences on set. And they sound positively delightful in contrast.The 51-year-old addressed the situation in a televised interview with Today on January 23, saying that Union’s experiences on the series don’t jive with his own. “First of all, I can’t speak for sexism because I’m not a woman, but I can speak on behalf of any racism comments,” he said. “That was never my experience on America’s Got Talent, in fact, it was the most diverse place I have ever been in my 20 years of entertainment. The Top 10 acts were Asian, women, older, younger, Black, white, it was everything in the gamut,” Crews said.

 

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Will YOU accept my ROSE ?and watch @agt tonight!?! #AGTat8

A post shared by Terry Crews (@terrycrews) on Jan 20, 2020 at 3:51pm PST

AGT has been making headlines ever since judges Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough were fired late last year, and Union went on to make some comments during a female empowerment and inclusivity panel that indicated it was a toxic work environment.“Don’t be the happy negro that does the bidding of the status quo because you’re afraid. Don’t allow them to call you angry when someone else is called passionate. It’s terrifying. There’s a solid chance you’ll lose your job … I speak from experience,” she said without ever actually mentioning the show.[video_embed id='1880261']RELATED: Why this season of 'AGT' is on a "whole other level"[/video_embed]The current season of America’s Got Talent: The Champions (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET, CTV2) features Crews and judges Heidi Klum, Alesha Dixon, Simon Cowell and Howie Mandel. A third-party is currently investigating claims from an unnamed source about racial insensitivity on set, a “hostile” environment for the female judges, and labour code violations involving Cowell supposedly smoking indoors. NBC entertainment boss Paul Telegdy recently told reporters at the Television Critics Association Press Winter Tour in Pasadena, Calif. that things should wrap by the end of the month.“I'm confident if we learn from this investigation, we'll put new practices in place, if that's what's necessary,” Telegdy told the room. “We take the investigation very seriously.”In his own interview, Crews continued, “When you look at what the allegations were about, it was given by an unnamed source. It’s funny, because I believe you should listen to women, you should always believe women, so I asked my wife what I should do. She was like, first of all, it’s coming from an unnamed source, because Gabrielle Union has not made any statement to this day about any of these allegations publicly.”Crews fans may remember that he was an important male voice during the rise of the #MeToo movement, when he shared his own story on Twitter about being groped by a Hollywood executive at a function in Los Angeles back in 2016. Last summer he thanked all the women behind the movement at the 25^th annual Essence Festival, saying they gave him courage to speak his own truth.“One thing that people don’t understand about the #MeToo movement is that people think that people come forward to get money, people come forward to get fame. The deal is you only get paid for silence,” Crews said. “It’s so important to understand that when people are telling the truth, it’s a way of setting free a whole nation of people who have been suffering.”The AGT drama continues…[video_embed id='-1']Before you go: Check out this baby ninja's moves as he climbs into his twin's crib[/video_embed]