WHY DOES MR. T NOT WEAR GOLD ANYMORE?
Mr. T (a.k.a. Lawrence Tureaud) is an American actor, who was famously part of the A-Team in the 1980s and appeared in Rocky III, but in most of the pictures pre-2005, he wore a lot of gold, but why did that stop?
His gold jewellery and his catchphrase “I pity the fool!” were a part of his persona. He wanted those around him to respect him, and no doubt see him as strong, hence him entering two tough-man competitions.
It’s how he ended up with the name Mr. T. It was based on the fact that he wanted those around him, specifically white folks, to put some respect for his name.
He says, “I think about my father being called ‘boy’…” when they came back from Vietnam, “so I questioned myself, “What does a black man have to do before he’s given respect as a man”. He wanted to first word to come out of everybody’s mouth to be “Mr.”
But getting back to the gold, he ended up wearing gold due to his role as a bouncer at a club. The gold he wore was the result of customers leaving their gold in the club or getting into fights and losing them that way.
It became a staple, of Mr. T But fast forward 20-odd years, and it suddenly stopped. But why?
In an interview with the New York Daily News, he said “As a Christian, I said I would never wear my own gold again because of what happened with Hurricane Katrina.”
For those unaware, caused roughly 1,392 fatalities, with estimated damage lying between $97.4 billion to $145.5 billion in August 2005.
He went on to say that it wouldn’t be right to wear gold when so many people have lost so much.