After being accused of assaulting two his ex-wives repeatedly, Terrence Howard is partly acknowledging the charges.

In Rolling Stone, Howard makes the confessions and claims that he was provoked in both cases, kind of playing the victim role.

Howard describes a 2001 argument with his ex-wife Lori McCommas that took place in front of their kids. According to a police report, he “punched her twice with a closed fist,” yet he is giving a different, yet still violent account.

“She was talking to me real strong, and I lost my mind and slapped her in front of the kids,” he admitted. “Her lawyer said it was a closed fist, but even slapping her was wrong.”

First wife Lori McCommas

Howard has been defended by Empire co-creator Lee Daniels, who calls him “that poor boy” and claims that he “ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some f***in’ demon.”

Daniels, the director of the movies Precious and The Butler, asserted that Howard’s race caused people to judge the allegations of domestic abuse against him more harshly.

Daniels said, “That’s a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America.

Regarding his second wife, Michelle Ghent, Howard was accused of severely beating her in 2013 in Costa Rica (according to a lawsuit she filed).

In 2013, after rekindling their relationship, Ghent claimed he’d struck her, giving her a black eye, and tried to strangle her while they were vacationing in Costa Rica.

According to the lawsuit, Howard “followed [Ghent] into the restroom of the rental house and punched her on the left side of her face. [Howard] also grabbed [her] by her neck and pushed her against the bathroom wall and strangled her for several seconds.”

‘She was trying to Mace me,’ he told Rolling Stone when asked about it.

‘You can’t see anything so all you can do is try to bat somebody away, and I think that something caught her. But I wasn’t trying to hit her,’ he claimed.

Ghent included the allegations in a lawsuit filed in July, making claims of assault and battery, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and defamation.

Second wife Michelle Ghent

Still, Howard says he is continuing to grow and is on his own personal journey.

“As a result of the travesties I’ve gone through, I have become awakened,” he said. “I mean, after spending time with me, you can see a good part of my nature. I’m on my own path, and I like the pebbles of my cobblestones.” (Centric)

Just last month, a judge ruled that Howard’s alimony payments to Ghent would now be reduced after it was revealed she had blackmailed the actor.

Howard’s relationship with his current wife, Mira Pak, also appears to be conflicted. Pak — the mother of Howard’s son Qirin — is present and affectionate throughout most of the interview, and Howard remarks of their relationship, “When you meet your one, it’s completely balanced … I’ve got a good wife.” Strangely, Pak reportedly separated from Howard in 2014 and earlier this year, filed for a divorce, which is expected to be finalized soon.

Beyond the idiosyncrasies of his love life, Howard also reveals his obsession with a new form of logic that he calls Terryology, based on his belief that one times one equals two, not one — a theory that the article doesn’t explain.

As part of his pursuit of the truths of Terryology, Howard builds “fantastical plastic assemblages … in two dimensions and three, tied together by copper wire or held in place by magnets.” Of these works, Howard remarks, “We’re about to show a new truth. The true universal math. And the proof is in these pieces. I have created the pieces that make up the motion of the universe. We work on them about 17 hours a day. She [Pak] cuts and puts on the crystals. I do the main work of soldering them together. They tell the truth from within.”