*As he continues waging legal war against Terrence Howard and Lee Daniels for supposedly stealing his life story to bring “Empire” to life, Ron Newt is making his bid for the small screen with creating a hot mess reality version of the hit Fox show.
According to TMZ, Newt, a former pimp, is currently shopping around “The Newt Empire,” a show that follows him and his family, full of music hopefuls, as they try to make it in the biz. In addition to navigating the music business landscape with his family, Newt will attempt to repair relationships he’s destroyed over the years.
Among those featured in “The Newt Empire” is Newt’s daughter-in-law, who describes her first meeting with Newt on a promo reel She says he comes off thinking he’s the real life version of Howard’s “Empire” character, Lucious Lyon.
Newt’s show and his effort to find a home for it comes amid his ongoing copyright infringement billion dollar lawsuit against Howard. At the heart of the suit are claims from Newt that “Empire” is substantially similar to his life story, which he says he pitched to the actor back in in 2010 and eventually became a certified success on the small screen. To hear Newt tell it, his story is one of a black man rising – with “his three sons from the ghetto and a life of crime – into the world of the music industry.”
Responding to the lawsuit, which was filed in 2015, lawyers for Fox filed a motion to dismiss the legal action brought by Newt, who labeled to himself as a “gangsta pimp.” In the network’s motion, “Empire” creators Daniels and Danny Strong stated that the show is “a modern take on Shakespeare’s King Lear.”
To see the promo reel for “The Newt Empire,” check out the video below: