When it comes to pop culture, Terry Crews is basically the ultimate man.

He played football in the NFL. He is the unequivocal star of a television comedy (Brooklyn nine-nine) and an action movie trilogy (The Expendables). He starred on the cover of fitness for menand has the personalized training show for it.

He’s been a married man for nearly 3 decades, he has five kids, and he’s so in love with his family life that he wrote a book on manhood. Same sound pecs are famous, thanks to Euro trainingAnd “Pinch synchronization», and all those Old Spice advertisement.

But until six or seven years ago, Crews privately struggled with a problem that affects a surprising number of men: pornography addiction.

In a series of three videos he posted on Facebook over the past two weeks under the title “Dirty Little Secret,” Crews explains how his addiction got progressively worse because he tried to keep it a secret, even of his wife Rebecca King-Crews, and even though it damaged his relationships.

“For years, years, years, my dirty little secret was that I was addicted to porn,” he says in the first video, posted Feb. 11. “It really, really ruined my life in so many ways,” he said. “I didn’t tell anyone.

How did he overcome his addiction

It was my secret. Nobody knew. And that allowed him to grow…. By not telling people, he becomes more powerful. But when you put it out in the open, like I’m doing right now, it loses its power.

Crews also refuted the idea that pornography could ever be a true addiction. “Some people denied it,” he said. “They were like, ‘Hey, man, you can’t be addicted to pornography.’

But let me tell you something: if day turns to night and you’re still watching, you probably have a problem. And it was me.

Crews said he overcame his porn addiction about six or seven years ago — “thank goodness,” he said — after it changed him so much his wife left.

“My wife was literally like, ‘I don’t know you anymore. I’m leaving.’ And it changed me. Because you realize: Yo, this is a major, major problem. I literally had to go to rehab for this… Once I realized what it was doing to me , it changed me.

Porn changes the way you think

Pornography “changes the way you think about people,” he said in the live video, speaking to the camera from his car. “People become objects. People become body parts. They become objects to be used rather than people to be loved.

And then he focused on his audience, saying he realized porn was a real problem, and “it became my fight to help people who are going through the same thing.”

In his second video, he talks about how his therapy helped him come to terms with his own emotions that triggered his addiction.

“You can’t survive with guilt and shame,” he says. “Guilt says you did a wrong thing. Shame tells you are bad, and it’s bad because you act on it.

He also talked about how women who know men addicted to porn “must be fearless” to confront them, as his wife was with him.

If you think you may be struggling with an addiction—and that quiz can help you figure this out– then talk to a licensed mental health professional and get help. If it can happen to Crews, it can happen to anyone.


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