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Terry Crews is well-known in the world of entertainment. The actor, comedian, and former American football player is famous for playing NYPD Sergeant Terry Jeffords in the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and is currently hosting America’s Got Talent.
Since 1990, Crews has been married to his wife, Rebecca King. The couple started dating in 1989, even though King was convinced (at first) that they were never going to be anything more than friends. King tells E! News, “He almost got stuck in the friend zone… He was a little too nice.”
In 1990, they said I do– Crews was just 20 at the time. Now, they’ve been together for 29 years. How does the couple still make it work? Here’s what we know.
While the pair is still married, it hasn’t been an easy road for them. In 2014, Crews admitted that he suffered from a long-standing pornography addiction that had a serious effect on his relationship.
In a Facebook video in which he discussed how he was addicted to pornography for years, Crews said, “My wife was literally like, ‘I don’t know you anymore, I’m out of here.'” He continued, “That changed me. I had to change because I realized this thing is a major, major problem.”
Together, the couple then went on Dr. Phil, where Crews revealed that he and Rebecca decided to stay together after Crews went to therapy. Good Housekeeping writes, “On the show, Rebecca said it took her about three years to really trust him again after she seriously considered leaving him for good. But the two ended up working through it – something Terry is eternally grateful for.”
So what’s the secret to their longlasting marriage? A sex fast.
According to a 2015 post by the Huffington Post, Crews and his wife went on a 90-day sex fast that left him “more in love” and “more turned on” than ever before. The outlet quotes Crews as saying, “90 days — no sex, all relationship, all talk, all cuddle… I found that at the end of that 90 days … I knew who she was, and it wasn’t about ‘Let’s go out because I know I’m gonna get some sex later.’ It was like, ‘Let’s go because I want to talk to you. I want to know you’.”
Crews says that the sex fast– recommended to him while he was in counseling– allowed him to appreciate his wife’s company. “You have to tell your body no. ‘No. We’re not gonna do that… The first couple [of] weeks, three weeks, you’re like, ‘Oh my god.’ And then all of a sudden you’re in a whole other zone.”
It seems the sex fast worked because the couple is still going strong today. In his Facebook video, Crews shares of his relationship and pornography addiction, “Every man out there desires intimacy. Every time you look at pornography, it’s a desire for intimacy… You are trying to fight your feelings of being alone by filling it with pornography in an attempt to feel that you are with someone and you know someone. But pornography is an intimacy killer. It kills all intimacy.”