Sean Penn has filed a 10 million dollar defamation lawsuit against Lee Daniels over comments the Empire co-creator made comparing him to the show’s star Terrence Howard, who’s been accused of domestic violence.

Daniels’ comments appeared online about a week ago in the entertainment publication The Hollywood Reporter in a story about the upcoming season of the popular Fox television show.

“That poor boy (Terrence) ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some … demon,” Daniels said in the article. “That’s a sign of time, of race, of where we are right now in America.”

Lee Daniels
Lee Daniels (Paul A Hebert/AP)

Penn’s lawsuit, filed in Manhattan civil court, says Daniels’ statements were egregious and injured Penn’s credibility and reputation personally, professionally and in his philanthropic activities.

Penn has won two best actor Oscars, for Mystic River and Milk. He has made a major humanitarian push in Haiti after it was devastated by an earthquake, co-founding the J/P Haitian Relief Organisation.

But he has a history of losing his temper. In 1987 he served time in jail and was ordered to undergo counselling for his violent conduct after violating his probation. This followed previous run-ins with a man in a nightclub and with an extra on the set of movie Colors, as well as a reckless driving charge.

Sean Penn
Sean Penn (Jordan Strauss/Invision)

His attorney Mathew Rosengart said the lawsuit isn’t just about Daniels’ comments.

“Sean has been the subject of numerous baseless attacks over the years, as the complaint provides, and this is only the most recent example,” he said.

Daniels is the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, The Paperboy and The Butler. The new season of Empire, which he created with Danny Strong, starts tonight (September 23) in the US.

A telephone call to Daniels’ publicist seeking comment on the lawsuit, wasn’t immediately returned.

Terrence Howard
Terrence Howard (Charles Sykes/Invision)

Howard has been forced to publicly address domestic violence allegations, including during testimony in a Los Angeles courtroom in August, when he acknowledged he struck his first wife in 2001 but denied abusing another ex-wife, Michelle Ghent.

Howard testified about the 2001 incident in Pennsylvania and said he drove to his ex-wife’s house after an argument and “kicked down the door and smacked her”. He said it was the “only time I’ve struck a woman” when it wasn’t self-defence.

Ghent accused Howard of abusing her on a trip to Costa Rica in 2013 and has a restraining order against him. Howard denied abusing her.

A judge in August overturned a Howard-Ghent divorce settlement that entitled her to a portion of his Empire earnings after finding she had coerced him into signing it or face leaks of embarrassing information about him. In making the finding, the judge said Howard’s claims of self-defence during his fights with Ghent were “not credible”.