If you’ve seen me on television—on America’s Got Talent, Brooklyn Nine-Nine 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
