Actor Terry Crews has identified Adam Venit, a high-powered Hollywood executive, as the man who allegedly sexually assaulted him last year.
In an interview Wednesday with Good Morning America, the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star described the experience with Venit, a well-connected celebrity agent, which he said occurred at an industry party in 2016.
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“I stick my hand out and he literally takes his hand and puts it, squeezes my genitals,” Crews said. “And I jump back like, ‘Hey, hey!’ … I go, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’”
Things escalated from there, Crews said.
“And then he comes back again and he just won’t stop. And then I really got forceful, pushed him back. He bumps into all the other partygoers and he starts giggling and laughing,” the actor said. “I have never felt more emasculated, more objectified. I was horrified. I went over to Adam [Sandler] right then and there and said, ‘Man, come get your boy. What is his problem?’”
Venit is in charge of the motion picture division at William Morris Endeavor, a large talent agency that represented Crews at the time.
William Morris says it suspended Venit as it investigates the matter.
“People need to be held accountable,” Crews said. “This is the deal about Hollywood. It is an abuse of power. This guy, again, he’s one of the most powerful man in Hollywood and he looked at me at the end as if, ‘Who is going to believe you?’”
In October, as the Harvey Weinstein allegations poured out, Crews alluded to the incident on Twitter but didn’t name Venit.
The encounter, Crews said in the interview, gave him PTSD.
“I put it in the back of my head and I understood why women everywhere had to let it go,” Crews said. “When the Weinstein thing started happening, I got PTSD. I was going, ‘Oh my God. This exact thing happened to me. I understand why they won’t come forward.’”
Crews, an imposing former NFL player who is African-American, worried about the optics of physically defending himself at the time.
“If I would have just retaliated in defense, I would be under the jail right now. That’s one thing I knew, that being a large African-American man in America, I would immediately be seen as a thug,” Crews told GMA.
