Lil Rel Howery is opening up about a touching moment he shared with fellow actor Cory Hardrict.
Speaking with Hardrict on a panel at the 7th annual Black Love Summit in Los Angeles over the weekend, the comedian revealed that the two of them had become close recently. He said they had an “emotional” conversation about life and fatherhood at a sports bar last year, amid Hardrict’s divorce from ex-wife Tia Mowry.
As we previously told you, Hardrict and Mowry announced their split back in Oct. 2022 and had a relatively smooth divorce period before things were officially finalized in April 2023. In the aftermath, the two have remained cordial and continue to peacefully co-parent their two kids.
“I knew you were going through some things. I just wanted to reach out to another dad, another brother, and we just talked,” Howery said of the conversation with Hardrict. “We met at one of the little sports bars I like to go to. We just sat there, and we just talked.”
Explaining how he admires the way Hardrict loves his children, Howery continued:
“No matter what us adults are going through, we’ve got to consider how they’re seeing it. I just thought it was beautiful, just with Black men [talking about their children]. We’re in a sports bar having an emotional conversation. Trying to watch the Lakers, tears coming out of [our eyes]. We are dads.”
Added Hardict, “It was just me and you. If somebody walked by that window, they’d [be like], ‘What’s going on in here?’ [But it was] just us.”
Seeing two notable Black men be vulnerable about the hardships of divorce and fatherhood is a breath of fresh air in a society that often tells them to keep their emotions bottled up and suppressed. Others like Tyrese have also been vocal about normalizing Black men expressing their feelings openly and without shame.