Actor and television host Terry Crews has been open about his struggle with pornography.
Earlier this year, the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star said he and his wife, Rebecca King-Crews, went on a “90-day sex fast” to battle his addiction to pornography, according to the Toronto Sun.
Although he said it made him feel “12 years old again,” Crews said the fast was worth it.
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“We did it together,” he said on “Entertainment Tonight.” “Rebecca was right there and she actually regrouped with me. I went on a 90-day sex fast [with] her. And people were like, ‘Whoa, that’s crazy!’ But let me tell you something — what was so beautiful about that, was it took me to a time when I was 12 years old and I liked a girl and I didn’t know anything about sex.”
In a way, the process rebooted Crews’ relationship with his wife, whom he married in 1989.
“[A]ll I did was give her a flower and say, ‘I like you for who you are,’” he said. “And it wasn’t about sex. It took us back to those moments. I felt like I was 12 years old again, because sex had been taken out of the equation and it was all about love again.”
The “America’s Got Talent” emcee was just a child when he first saw pornography — and it stuck with him for many years.
“I was nine years old when I was exposed to pornography, and I would say that’s abusive,” the actor said. “The fact that I was able to get it, the fact that I was able to look at it, and it became something I used as a crutch, to numb all this pain, even before I met Rebecca.”
The well-known celebrity said he struggled silently for 20 years before opening up to his wife.
The pornography compulsion eventually led Crews to be unfaithful to his wife — sins he pledged he’d never divulge to Rebecca.
“But my wife knew something was wrong, because we kept getting farther and farther apart,” he recalled. “And when she addressed me and finally put the question to me, ‘What is it that I don’t know about you, Terry Crews?’ And I told [her], I was thinking, ‘Well, you know, finally we can get past this.’ She was like, ‘Uh uh, nope, I’m out. I’m gone.’”
That realization prompted Crews, who became a Christian at 17 years old, to come face-to-face with his addiction.
“It was the best thing that we had ever done,” he said of the 90-day sex fast, now describing his wife as his “rock.” Crews continued, “There’s nothing like having someone who knows you in and out, all the stuff, and loves you anyway. That was the thing I was scared of. Like, if Rebecca found out who I really was, she’d leave. But what happened was, she found out who I really was and she told me she loved me anyway, and that blew my mind.”
Rebecca King-Crews credits their trust in the Lord with carrying them through a very dark season. She recently told The Christian Post their relationship is now “stronger than ever.”
“Today, I look at my husband, and I always say he’s a better man than me,” she said. “He took hold of the Word of God, and he took hold of the Scriptures, and he just ran with all his might. He said, ‘God, I don’t want to be like this anymore.’ And he amazes me every day. He really is the kinder, gentler version of Terry Crews, because he let God do a work in his life.”
“We are by no means perfect,” she added, “but I love the relationship we have today. It’s free from fear.”
Crews, author of the newly released memoir “Tough: My Journey to True Power,” has also spoken to Fight the New Drug about his past struggle, telling the nonprofit how he fought against the urge to seek out pornography in moments of loneliness, boredom, stress, and pain:
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