Strength Training

How the host of America's Got Talent discovered his superpower (Hint: It has nothing to do with lifting weights)  

- TERRY CREWS

If you've seen me on television-on America's Got Talent, Brooklyn NineNine or Everybody Hates Chris, for example or in movies such as The Expendables, you know I'm known for my big muscles and alpha swagger. Yeah, I bought into that hype too. Sure, the image allowed me to support my wife, Rebecca, and our five kids in style. But it went deeper and darker.

What I couldn't let anyone even myself-see was that inside I felt inadequate and vulnerable, like the seven-year-old boy I used to be. A boy who was desperate for his parents to stop fighting, desperate for his father's love.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan, the middle child of three. One of my earliest memories was of seeing my father, drunk, knock my mother to the floor. This happened regularly. Even so, I was considered lucky by neighborhood standards because my father was around and didn't beat us kids. He was a foreman at the GM plant, a hard worker and a good provider.

My mother would say things to lay him low. She liked to scream about what a sinner he was. She was a devoted churchgoer, and she took us kids for hours-long services and Bible school. But her church was as dysfunctional as her marriage. The pastor didn't preach about God's love and grace. Instead, he preyed on his congregants' shame about their weaknesses and their fear of hellfire. What I learned was that you didn't ever cross God. His wrath and judgment came quickly. I wanted to hide from God. He was even scarier than my earthly father.

Still, I loved my dad and yearned for him to love me. What boy doesn't? I would watch him get ready for work. I'd try to make conversation about how he shined his shoes (he had served in the Army and still dressed with military crispness) or whatever else I could think of, but he'd give clipped answers, as if to say, "Leave me alone."