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Terry Crews Says ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Writers Scrapped Episodes Amid Black Lives Matter Protests: ‘We Have to Start Over’

Making changes. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is adjusting its season 8 scripts to reflect the current state of the country, Terry Crews revealed in a new interview.

“We’ve had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we’re going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year. We have an opportunity and we plan to use it in the best way possible,” Crews, 51, told Access Hollywood on Tuesday, June 23. “Our showrunner, Dan Goor, they had four episodes all ready to go and they just threw them in the trash. We have to start over. Right now we don’t know which direction it’s going to go in.”

Related: Celebrities Who’ve Defended Their Support of Black Lives Matter

Crews noted that right now, the entire writers’ room and cast all stand together and are having candid conversations about systematic racism.

Terry Crews Says 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Writers Scrapped Episodes Amid Black Lives Matter Protests: 'We Have to Start Over'
Terry Crews as Terry Jeffords in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Jordin Althaus/NBC

“This is an opportunity right now for us all to unite and get together and understand what this is and that we have to battle this together,” he said, recalling his own experiences of being targeted through the years.

Related: Stars Donate to Bail Out Protestors Amid the Black Lives Matter Movement

“You’ve seen me in movies or whatever but before all this, I was always a threat. I would be going to the mall or going different places. I’ve had guns pointed at me by police officers in L.A. This was before I was famous. The thing is, they had the wrong guy,” the America’s Got Talent host added. “It’s something that every black man has been through and it’s hard to really try to get other people to understand. I have to say, right here, what is going on right now is Black America’s Me Too movement. We always knew this was happening, but now white people are understanding.”

The global protests began following the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee to his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Earlier this month, the cast and showrunner of the NBC sitcom donated $100,000 to the National Bail Fund Network, which supports those protesting police brutality around the country.

Related: Stars Protest George Floyd's Murder

Actor Griffin Newman, who is best known for his role in The Tick, also began a movement amid social media, donating to the Community Justice Exchange. “I’m an out-of-work actor who (improbably) played a detective on two episodes of BLUE BLOODS almost a decade ago,” he tweeted on June 1. “If you currently play a cop? If you make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in residuals from playing a cop? I’ll let you do the math.”

Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz followed his lead, also donating $11,000.

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