Terry Crews Is a Model of a Man

Eight months after taking on his assaulter, Terry Crews is leveraging his profile, his money, and his reputation to take on the system in a way he says the average victim cannot. [ view in browser.   add esquire@newsletter.esquire.com to your address book ]             FOLLOW US       Please Don't Interrupt Terry Crews. He's on a Mission.   On a late-summer day in Los Angeles, I plan to meet Terry Crews at the Getty Museum because, in addition to everything else Crews does—which, seriously, is everything—he's a hugely talented visual artist. I figure we'll go deep on the photography exhibit. I'll ask: "Terry, what's the inner monologue of the person in this picture?" Really get my Barbara Walters on. What happens instead is that we get nine steps into the Getty Center, turn to one another, and talk for five solid hours—about toxic masculinity, sexual assault, and the power structure in Hollywood. He's candid throughout, even as a ring of tourists forms around us, very possibly wondering whether they've wandered into a Terry Crews TED Talk. One by one, people give a look, and then another, and then a full, delighted stare. "I always say I have a superpower," he tells me. "My superpower is that I'm unembarrassable." Crews carries himself with a certain military precision. He arrives at the Getty Museum at twelve o'clock noon and zero seconds. He looks me dead in the eye and shakes my hand intensely and firmly, but not too much of either. He stands with his shoulders back and chest out, as though he might salute at any moment. He wears a crisp cream polo shirt with matching jeans and sneakers—almost a uniform. All of this makes sense because, right now, he's on a mission. Terry Crews is using his fame, his brains, and his boundless energy to completely redefine masculinity for the twenty-first century. He's gone public with his recovery from pornography addiction, with his experience of life with an abusive father, and now with his own sexual assault. He has consistently challenged himself, pushed past what's expected of an athlete, an actor, a man. Now he's challenging us to change the way we see ourselves and our role in the world. "There's a whole lot of rebuilding that needs to happen," he tells me. "So it's gonna be messy." READ MORE       My Quest to Find a Version of 'Frosty the Snowman' That Doesn't Suck   Esquire's Bruce Handy recently tasked himself with listening to every version of "Frosty the Snowman" on Spotify to see if there is even a single tolerable rendition, and there is—from a group he never expected. Read On         Esquire's Best New Restaurants in America, 2018   Caviar on a bone-marrow custard. Carnitas on a deftly textured tortilla. A Balinese chicken thigh with a crackly roof of skin. We loved them all this year—we crushed hard on fancy tasting menus and Filipino rice bowls, swooned over ceviches and tlacoyos. Where should you eat? We're sending you here, to the Best New Restaurants in America. You'll probably see us at the next table, because we can't stop going back. Read On         In a Crowded Celebrity Booze Market, Metallica Made One Worth Drinking   In August, Metallica released its own whiskey brand, Blackened, the first liquor from the band. It, too, is immersed in music. Created in collaboration with master distiller Dave Pickerell, a rockstar himself in the whiskey world, Blackened is serenaded with the band's discography new and very, very old until it vibrates, soaking in the controlled, thumping energy as flavor from the barrel. Esquire's Sarah Rense spoke with Lars Ulrich about the whiskey, and how the spirit itself was born not of some later-in-life rocker despair, as the money dries up and the last farewell tour winds down, but rather an effort to make a modern whiskey for younger folks to embrace as their own. And unlike, say, Bob Dylan's unenthusiastic sponsorship of Heaven's Door, the band is fully behind it. Read On         Iliana Regan Became a Chef on a Dark, Twisted, Terrifying Day   In an excerpt from her new memoir, Chef Iliana Regan, who hunts for bullfrogs and accepts gifts of raccoon to inform the menus at her two restaurants in Chicago, recounts the day she knew for the first time she would be a chef. She was five years old. Read On         22 Christmas Movies on Netflix You Can Stream Right Now   It's the most wonderful time of the year: When you tune out the noise and just watch a bunch of movies that serve as cinematic comfort food. Lean into the celebratory nature of the Christmas movie, a genre that can offer some over-the-top sweetness or some cynical yuletide-hating features. Here are the best Christmas movies to stream on Netflix right now. Read On       Unsubscribe •  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2018 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019