Terrence Howard, fresh off giving one of the most perplexing red carpet interviews of all-time, stopped by the Late Late Show with James Corden. The actor has expressed his despite to retire after the final season of Empire, and in his interview with Corden he spoke further about that. He also opened up about his former co-star Jussie Smollett, who was booted from the show earlier this year after he allegedly staged a hate crime against himself in Chicago.
"Yes we have," Howard replied when asked if he and the rest of the cast have stayed in touch with Smollett. "Jussie played my son. I mean, the show kicked off because I took my 4-year-old son and put him in the trash can because he had worn high-heel shoes down the stairs," he said. "I was so proud of that young man that played my son, because he still loved me at the end of it. And all he wanted to do was get closer to me. Then out of nowhere, you know, he's snatched away from us. So it's like now he was the heart of our show, and now it's like our show is on a heart and lung bypass machine because the heart is gone, but we're still hoping that there's going to be a transplant, and hoping somehow it will come back together."
After the comments, Howard apologized to the audience and Corden. "I'm sorry to bring you guys down," he said. But asked how it felt on set with Smollett there, he didn't get into specifics. "I don't know what it was like, I'm still trying to figure it out," he said. "We are all still trying to put the pieces together because my son is gone. That was my little boy, and he's gone now, and they don't mention him as if it's okay. And it's like, no, that's not cool."
Howard has expressed his support for Smollett in the past, but when it was announced earlier this year that Season 6 of Empire would be the show's last, the studio confirmed there were "no plans" to bring his character back. Speaking about the situation in regards to Smollett, he did not, however, discuss Pythagoras or gravity.
Asked about his retirement claims and his bizarre red carpet interview in a separate clip, Howard doubled down on his plans. "I'm dead serious," he said. "I'm so done with pretending to be people and I just want to be real for a minute."
He also said he was debating not bathing for a month to discover himself, which is advice Colin Farrell apparently gave.
