Sean Penn settles defamation lawsuit against Lee Daniels for calling him a wife beater

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Sean Penn has settled a defamation lawsuit he filed against director Lee Daniels, over remarks that the Empire co-creator called him a wife beater.

The two reached a confidential settlement in Manhattan court on Wednesday, with Daniels issuing an apology to Penn, retracting his statements and making a donation to Penn's Haiti charity.  

'I am sorry that I have hurt you Sean, and I apologize and retract my reckless statements about you,' Daniels said. 

Sean Penn settled a defamation lawsuit against director Lee Daniels on Wednesday, after the Empire co-creator called him a wife beater in an interview last year

He continued: 'I, too, have been the subject of false attacks by others. My most important role is as a father, and it is important to me that my children learn that it is wrong to reference gossip as fact, as I did here. That can be very damaging and hurtful.'

Daniels went on to call Penn a 'brilliant actor' and 'humanitarian'. As part of the deal, Daniels will be making an unspecified donation to Penn's Haiti relief charity. 

Penn accepted Daniels' apology, responding: 'I accept Lee’s heartfelt apology and appreciate the sincerity with which it was delivered.'   

Penn sued Daniels in Manhattan civil court in September, after Daniels made a comment in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, alleging that Penn had beat his ex-wife Madonna. 

Daniels compared Penn to Terrence Howard - an actor who has admitted to hitting two of his wives. Penn meanwhile has never been charged with domestic abuse

In the interview, Daniels compared Penn's alleged actions to those of Empire star Terrence Howard, making the case that black men who abuse are villainized in a way that white men who do the same things aren't.

'[Terrence] ain't done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he's some f*****' demon. That's a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America,' Daniels said. 

Penn claimed Daniels was wrong to compare him with Howard - who has admitted to hitting two of his wives - since he was never convicted of domestic violence.

His pop star ex also filed a sworn declaration in December saying that Penn had never physically abused her.  

While Penn may never had been officially convicted of domestic assault, violent disputes with his ex-wife Madonna have been widely reported.

In 1987, Penn allegedly struck the pop star across the head with a baseball bat, but she didn't press charges. 

Then, in December 1988, he reportedly tied her to a chair and beat her over a nine-hour period. Madonna allegedly escaped when he untied her to use the restroom and she fled to a nearby police station. 

Lieutenant Bill McSweeney, who was working at the station at the time, described seeing a battered Madonna in a biography about the pop star by J. Randy Taraborrelli.

'When Madonna staggered into the station, she was distraught, crying, with makeup smeared all over her face. I hardly recognized her…she had obviously been struck,' McSweeney said. 

But yet again, Madonna withdrew her complaint and the two divorced the following year.

As for Howard, the 46-year-old confessed to domestic abuse in a bizarre interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which he said he 'slapped' and not 'punched' his first wife and was acting in self-defense when he beat on his second.

Howard's first wife Lori McCommas, the mother of three of his children, claimed the Hustle & Flow star 'punched her twice with a closed fist' in a 2001 incident, according to a police report.

Madonna and Penn were married for four years, from 1985 until 1989. The former couple pictured above in October 1986

The couple, who wed in 1989, divorced in 2003, remarried in 2005 and divorced again in 2007 after which it was revealed the actor had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct as a result of the 2001 altercation.

He explained in his interview with Rolling Stone that McCommas had provoked him.

'She was talking to me real strong, and I lost my mind and slapped her in front of the kids,' he said.

'Her lawyer said it was a closed fist, but even slapping her was wrong.'

His second wife Michelle Ghent won a restraining order against him after claiming he had been physically abusive towards her as well as threatening and staling her.

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.

'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.

A former girlfriend May Seng Yang wrote in a statement to police that Howard choked her and punched her in the eye before throwing her to the ground in 2012 after she accused him of giving her herpes.

The actor reciprocated by filing assault charges against Yang and they both eventually dropped their cases, settling the matter in civil court.

It's not just the women in his life who have been on the receiving end of his temper.

In 2005, he once again pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after knocking a man to the ground and hitting a woman after they got into an argument at a restaurant.

Howard was accused of trying to cut the line in front of the pair, sparking the confrontation.

He said he wasn't even in the line and had simply gone to ask about the wait time for a table and that he had acted in self-defense.

In 2000, a Continental Airlines flight attendant claimed the Crash star had assaulted her. The charges were eventually dropped.

But pubic opinion about his violent run-ins also, it seems, led him to accept his current critically-acclaimed role as Lucious Lyon in the Fox TV series Empire.

He told Rolling Stone simply: 'Since they see me as a bad guy, I'm gonna play a bad guy.'