Terrence Howard has probably made a lot of money throughout his career, but early on it wasn’t as much as many would expect.
In the 2005 film Hustle & Flow, Howard played the role of DJay, a pimp who has his eyes set on a rapping career. The film was a hit, but that didn’t show in Howard’s pockets.
During an interview with WREG, Howard discussed how much he was paid for his role in the film.
“I made $12,000 for doing Hustle & Flow,” Howard said. “What Paramount did, instead of putting my name as ‘Terrence Howard’ performing the songs, they put ‘performed by DJay.’ Well, they owned DJay.”
Howard explained that all the money that was supposed to go to him for his role was given to Paramount because DJay was the name they put on the music.
“Now, I’ve got to send them a letter to say, ‘Hey, you guys owe me about 20 years worth of residuals and performance royalties,'” Howard said. “I was just trying to pay my rent. I made $6,000 doing Crash. The business don’t pay the actors anything that’s why the strike is going on. The actors are struggling.”
Howard went on to earn an Oscar nomination for Hustle & Flow in 2006 for Best Actor.
