Prologue : The Actor Who Rewrote Math

On a warm September evening in 2019, Terrence Howard stood beneath the glaring lights of the Emmy Awards red carpet. He wasn’t there to talk about acting, despite his starring role in the hit TV series Empire. Instead, he made an announcement that would echo across the internet for days:

“This is the end for me. I’ve made some discoveries in mathematics. I was able to open up the flower of life properly and find the real wave conjugations that we’ve been looking for for thousands of years.” (Business Insider)

Howard declared he had solved puzzles left unfinished by Pythagoras, and that he would no longer waste his time on Hollywood. Instead, he would devote himself to proving his theories—ideas that claimed 1 × 1 = 2, that gravity could be “killed,” and that zero did not exist.

The moment was surreal. Just fourteen years earlier, Howard had been Oscar-nominated for Hustle & Flow, lauded as one of the best actors of his generation. He had been the original Colonel James Rhodes in Marvel’s Iron Man (2008), a role later played by Don Cheadle. At his peak, he was charming, magnetic, and unstoppable.

Now, he was talking about rewriting the laws of the universe.

How did one of Hollywood’s brightest stars become one of its strangest prophets?

Chapter 1: Childhood Shaped by Violence

Terrence Dashon Howard was born on March 11, 1969, in Chicago, Illinois. His earliest memory is not of toys or lullabies, but of blood.

In 1971, when Howard was just three years old, his father Tyrone Howard stabbed a man to death during a fight in line to see Santa Claus at a Cleveland department store. The incident—later dubbed the “Santa Line Slaying”—was witnessed by dozens of children, including young Terrence. Tyrone Howard served eleven months for manslaughter (Wikipedia).

The violence shattered the family. Terrence’s parents divorced, and he was raised largely by his grandmother, Minnie Gentry, a New York stage actress with credits on Broadway and film. Gentry instilled in her grandson an appreciation for performance and storytelling. Acting, for young Terrence, became both an escape and a way of asserting control over a world that had shown him chaos too soon.

But hardship persisted. As a teenager, Howard developed Bell’s Palsy, a paralysis of the facial nerves. Doctors offered grim prognoses. Howard refused to accept it. He claimed to have rigged an electric current from his father’s razor and applied shocks to his face until movement returned. “I wasn’t going to be broken,” he told Black America Web.

These stories—violence, resilience, self-reliance—became cornerstones of Howard’s identity.

Chapter 2: Breaking into Hollywood

Howard’s first brush with television came at age 15 with a role on The Cosby Show. But the excitement was short-lived. His scenes were cut.

The teenage Howard, furious, confronted Bill Cosby at his dressing room. “I told him, ‘You messed me up,’” Howard later recalled. “You don’t call out the king. I was a fool. And I paid for it” (Nicki Swift).

Despite setbacks, Howard chased the dream. He enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study chemical engineering but dropped out after three semesters. He later admitted to exaggerating his education when trying to impress agents. “I didn’t see it as lying,” he told GQ. “I saw it as survival.” (GQ)

In the mid-1990s, roles began to come. Howard appeared in Living Single, NYPD Blue, and Family Matters. In 1995, he made an impression in Mr. Holland’s Opus as a troubled student inspired by music. That same year, he starred in Dead Presidents, a gritty war drama that showcased his emotional depth.

By the late ’90s, he was a steady presence in Hollywood, earning praise for The Best Man (1999) and later in Showtime’s Soul Food.

Chapter 3: Hustle, Flow, and Stardom

In 2005, Howard landed the role that would define his career: DJay, a Memphis pimp-turned-aspiring-rapper in Hustle & Flow.

The film, directed by Craig Brewer, was raw, unpolished, and electric. Howard immersed himself so fully that he performed several of the film’s rap songs himself.

The movie became a breakout success, winning the Sundance Audience Award and grossing over $20 million domestically. Howard received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Critics raved. Roger Ebert called it “a career-defining role.” The New York Times praised his “mixture of vulnerability and swagger.”

That same year, Howard appeared in Crash—which went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. In the span of months, he went from working actor to household name.

By 2008, Marvel cast him as Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes in Iron Man. At the time, Howard was the highest-paid actor in the film, earning more than Robert Downey Jr., whose comeback was still fragile. “They came to me first,” Howard later said. “I was supposed to make $8 million for the second film” (GQ).

Howard had it all: respect, money, fame, and a franchise future. But his fall would be as fast as his rise.

Chapter 4: Losing Marvel, Losing Hollywood

Behind the scenes, tensions simmered. Howard was known for his temper, his intensity, and his unwillingness to compromise.

When Marvel renegotiated contracts for Iron Man 2, Howard claimed his salary was slashed to fund Downey Jr.’s raise. “I called Robby,” Howard told Rolling Stone. “And he didn’t call me back for three months.”

Marvel recast the role with Don Cheadle. For Howard, the loss was devastating. He had been part of what would become the most successful film franchise in history—and was cut out just as it was beginning.

His career stumbled. He appeared in smaller films like Pride (2007) and The Company You Keep (2012). He also faced tabloid attention for turbulent marriages, divorces, and lawsuits. His reputation in Hollywood soured.

By the 2010s, it seemed Howard might fade into obscurity. Then came Fox’s Empire.

Chapter 5: Empire and Redemption

In 2015, Howard was cast as Lucious Lyon, the ruthless music mogul at the center of Empire.

The show was an instant hit, drawing millions of viewers and making Howard a household name again. As Lyon, he combined menace, charisma, and vulnerability—the very qualities that had once made him an Oscar contender.

For five seasons, Howard was back on top. But behind the scenes, his fascination with alternative science was intensifying.

By 2019, he announced he was retiring from acting—again. This time, he said, he had found a higher calling.

Chapter 6: The Birth of “Terryology”

In a 2015 Rolling Stone profile, Howard revealed what he called Terryology: his personal system of mathematics and philosophy.

“How can it equal one?” he asked. “If one times one equals one, that means two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two, because the square root of four is two.” (Rolling Stone)

Howard claimed he had built plastic-and-wire models to prove his theories, working “17 hours a day” on his discoveries. He insisted the world would adopt his math within 20 years.

He also denied the existence of zero, suggested straight lines were illusions, and promised he could “unify the field of mathematics.”

Critics dismissed it as pseudoscience. But Howard doubled down.

Chapter 7: The Rogan Era — “Killing Gravity”

In May 2024, Howard appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. What followed was perhaps the most surreal celebrity interview of the year.

Howard told Rogan he could “kill gravity,” that the Pythagorean theorem was false, and that he remembered his own birth and circumcision (Hindustan Times).

He also claimed to own patents worth “trillions,” allegedly cited by Apple and Microsoft, but said he had never been compensated (TDPel Media).

At one point, he described a “vortex model” that would make airplanes and drones obsolete. Rogan listened intently, occasionally skeptical, but never outright dismissive.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, however, was blunt. Howard’s claims, he said, were “under-informed, misinformed, or simply false” (Rolling Out).

On Reddit, reactions ranged from laughter to disbelief. “Is there a reason I should believe this actor’s claims about science?” one user asked. “Nope. Not one single reason.” (Reddit)

Chapter 8: Atlantis and the Future

Howard has since spoken about building a new society modeled on Atlantis, free from what he sees as the lies of mainstream science (HotNewHipHop).

He dreams of a world where his models replace centuries of mathematics, where gravity is obsolete, and where technology flows from his discoveries.

Whether delusional or visionary, Howard is committed. “Everyone is wrong but me,” he told Rogan. “But that’s okay. In time, they’ll see.”

Chapter 9: The Meaning of Terrence Howard

Terrence Howard’s life defies easy categorization. He is:

• A survivor of childhood trauma.
• A brilliant actor who gave unforgettable performances.
• A man whose temper and principles cost him Hollywood roles.
• A thinker who now challenges the very fabric of mathematics.

His story raises questions about celebrity, credibility, and the thin line between genius and delusion.

Why do people listen? Part of the answer lies in Howard’s charisma. He speaks with conviction, charm, and poetic rhythm. He sounds like a prophet, even when his theories collapse under scrutiny.

In an era where conspiracy theories thrive online, Howard has become a celebrity apostle of pseudoscience—part curiosity, part cautionary tale.

Epilogue: The Lost Mind

Terrence Howard once stood at the peak of Hollywood. Now, he stands at the fringes of science, trying to bend the universe to his will.

Is he a misunderstood visionary, punished for thinking differently? Or is he simply an actor who, unable to accept the limits of fame, reinvented himself as a prophet?

Perhaps both can be true.

As one scientist quipped after his Rogan appearance:

“If 1 × 1 = 2, then maybe Terrence Howard is both a genius and a fraud—depending on how you do the math.”