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This article contains topics of sexual harassment; please take care while reading.
Joey, Matthew, and Andy Lawrence have come together to give 90s kids a blast from the past with their Brotherly Love Podcast, where they discuss everything from growing up in the spotlight to their unique bond with one another, as well as the trials and tribulations they worked through alone and together.
The latest episode talked about something that’s prominent yet despicable in the entertainment industry; the unfair persuasion and sexual advances often made by those in positions of power to barter and bargain with those hoping for specific roles, parts, and projects.
Lawrence didn’t mince words when opening up about being sent to hotel rooms by his own agency and showing up to find “prominent” members of the entertainment industry, like Oscar-winning directors, clothed only in robes as they asked him to undress and allow them to snap Polaroids of him. Lawrence said he would walk out of those rooms, and for it, he lost out on several major acting jobs.
“Well, not a lot of guys, in my opinion, have come out and talked about this in the industry. Yes, there is also this same situation; now granted, I’d say it’s probably a third of what women go through — the amount of men. Men go through this as well. Whether it’s another woman or another man in power, there have been many times in my life where I’ve been propositioned to get a huge role. I’ve lost my agency because I went to the hotel room, which I can’t be they would send me to have a very prominent Oscar award-winning director who showed up in his robe, asked me to take my clothes off, and said he needed to take Polaroids of me, and that if I did X, Y, and Z, I would be the next Marvel character.”
“I didn’t do that, and my agency fired me because I left this this directors room, and a lot of my stuff, a lot of these stories a lot of other male friends have gone through with both men and women in this industry. But there’s a double standard, and this is where I bring Terry Crews; Terry Crews comes out and says if people are laughing at him, right people don’t support him to kick him out. Why? Because he’s a man that represents masculinity, and I think our society is less ready to hear that situation going on with men, and they are with women, actually.”
Joey added that he was no stranger to those experiences either. Still, there’s something that their parents taught them early on that helped them to remain strong in situations where they were propositioned or offered substances in public settings, often as teenagers who were away from their parents for the first time.
“Look, the bottom line is there’s been, you know, a lot of those are those crossroads, you know, and those thresholds that you know, of course, I mean, we’ve all been, you know, part of that — and those moments are tough. You know, it’s about, I guess, for me, you know, when those moments arose, and they were plenty, obviously, it was just a principle thing for me. I just wasn’t going to do it, you know, and I lost out on a lot of parts too big, big movie parts, you know, and like you said, I know the guys that went on and did them and, I don’t know what situations they were thrust into. I’m not gonna even speculate, but I know that it was set up in an infrastructure where that’s what was expected.”
So what was it that their parents told them? That they had to decide at a young age what they would allow in their bodies, what standards and principles they’d set for themselves as far as which lines they’d cross and what they’d stay away from. They were taught to set rigid boundaries for the things they wouldn’t allow themselves to experiment with or to think twice about, and it wasn’t always easy.
There were situations where they felt pressured, but they had their parents’ voices in their heads to help guide them, which brought them to another topic of conversation. Matthew spoke about a mentor he had as a young actor with the iconic Robin Williams, who died by suicide in 2014. He gave him a dose of hard-to-hear but healthy advice early on, and it’s because Williams had experienced a lot, leaving him with the desire to help others as much as he could.
“Robin Williams — one of the biggest impacts I took off of that set for Mrs. Doubtfire, right was the fact that when he was on, he was on when he was off — it was really a bad experience for him. Life was terrible for him when he was offstage, and he was not shy about that, and I understand why he was not shy about that because he flat out told me.”
Matthew said that there was an understanding that Williams’ trailer was his space, a sacred ground where he could retreat and be by himself, but at ages 10 and 11, Matthew didn’t grasp that. He would go to his trailer and spend time with the actor who he’d become friends with; in fact, he saw him as a second dad — someone who looked after him and tried to ensure that his path in the entertainment world would be a good one. Matthew learned from Williams’ pain in all of the ways he didn’t say it with words.
“It was so painful for him just to sit there and have quiet, and it was almost like a (winces) and so he explained to me what was going on, and the end of the explanation was, ‘I don’t care what doctors say, or what doctors told me. I know it did it to my brain, Matt. There were five years there where I lived on cocaine.’ He said, ‘After those five years of pain, even though I got off and got clean, it chemically changed my brain. Now I have to deal with this sh– all day, every day; it’s stolen my time with my kids, with my wife; it’s stolen parts of my career. It’s stolen part of my brain from me and destroyed me. So that hearing that from a guy that I admired like that — it wasn’t doing that.”
Williams didn’t shy away from conversations about mental health and addiction, and in a chat with GMA in 2006, he opened up about what he called a lower power/voice in his head. It encouraged him to start with just one…just one more…and before he knew it, he was in over his head.
“One day I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And then that voice — I call it the ‘lower power’ — goes, ‘Hey. Just a taste. Just one.’ I drank it, and there was that brief moment of ‘Oh, I’m okay!’ But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street. I knew it was really bad one Thanksgiving when I was so drunk they had to take me upstairs.”
Despite his own hurt, Williams encouraged Matthew and anyone around him who would listen to be better versions of themselves and to avoid the things that would lead them towards a lower version of themselves. Growing up with parents who led them to believe in themselves, the Lawrence brothers had idols that led them down a path of leading by example and learning from mistakes; they were built up by some of the greatest motivators they could have asked for.
As he continued chatting about Williams, you could see both the joy and hurt on Matthew’s face, the same hurt that flashed across it when he talked about Terry Crews and those hotel rooms he was sent to. There’s an ignored piece of the entertainment realm that lends to advantage being taken and rules being broken that impact things far beyond the present moment. Be it assault or addiction, those things stay with you, changing you on a level that you don’t immediately recognize.
While the end of their podcast episode came with some lighthearted material and a fan chat, it was evident that the pain they knew some of their peers and loved ones experienced has stuck with them too. While the Lawrence brothers had a supportive family, not everyone else has that — and even those who do aren’t always able to say no; they’re not always able to walk away. The Me Too Movement helped bring awareness to it, but it’s far from over, and the correct people must be reprimanded for their actions.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. A list of international crisis resources can be found here.