Mr. T reveals his approach to handling jealousy: 'I didn’t say, you got a beef with me?'
Mr. T says he faced jealousy on 'The A-Team' and in WWE
Mr. T is opening up about the jealousy he faced while rising to fame.
He has opened up about more experiences from his life in a new interview tied to the Netflix documentary Untold Mr. T: I Pity The Fool.
The 74-year-old actor explains that even as he worked his way from Chicago's streets to Hollywood success, he encountered resentment from people around him.
"I've had to deal with a lot of jealousy. In the neighborhood, a lot of Black people didn't like me and white people didn't like me, because I wasn't supposed to rise up," he said, adding that people doubted his success would last.
Mr. T insisted his achievements came from hard work and planning, not luck, and that he expected pushback because of it.
“But I worked hard to get to where I was. It wasn’t by accident. It was well planned,” he explained. “And I knew it’d take care. I said, ‘I’m not going to fall from this because the enemy would love to see me fall.’ I knew that I worked hard and got what I did and because of that, certain people I’ve never done nothing to will hate me, because I am what they want to be.”
He recalled tension with The A-Team co-star George Peppard, who reportedly grew frustrated with Mr. T's popularity. Rather than respond publicly, Mr. T said he chose to stay silent and let his actions speak for him.
“I handled it without taking it to the street. I didn’t say, ‘Hey George, you got a beef with me? Let’s take it outside.’ I didn’t do that,” Mr. T said. “He had the problem. I didn’t have the problem. My Bible teaches me to love people.”
He also faced skepticism in professional wrestling, where some questioned whether he'd earned his place, despite having wrestled in high school.
“They didn’t know I was tough. They thought I was just a celebrity. So they hated, and I loved them,” he concluded, emphasising that choosing love over hate ultimately became his approach to jealousy throughout his career.
Untold Mr. T: I Pity The Fool is streaming now on Netflix.
