Terry Crews Says Even People in Dubai Ask Him About ‘White Chicks’

According to actor, TV host and former professional football player Terry Crews, “Every summer, a new 13-year-old discovers White Chicks,” because what else is there to do when it’s 120 degrees outside and their dad doesn’t have a liquor cabinet for them to raid?

In 2004, the internationally iconic comedy family The Wayans Brothers released their feature-length treatise on the topic of race relations in America and it’s intersection with the criminal justice system. White Chicks, with all its uncanny prosthetics, “Yo momma” jokes and Vanessa Carlton sing-alongs, changed the comedy industry forever and taught filmmakers what the medium is truly capable of. But, even more than that, White Chicks also transformed the lives of everyone involved in the making of the masterpiece, not the least of whom was Crews, whose performance as the white-chocolate-loving professional basketball player Latrell Spencer jump-started his acting career and led to decades of strangers from around the world asking him to sing “A Thousand Miles” with them.

Last night, during his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crews revealed that fans ask him about White Chicks more than any other project from his impressive career, especially when he’s traveling abroad. Now, I need to know how the hell Sony Pictures handled the Arabic translation of the line, “Something’s wrong, Dr. Dre! My coochie’s doing a beatbox!”

“The one thing that’s really wild, I’m in this really amazing place like Dubai, or wherever, and they’re like, (in a Dubaian accent), ‘White Chicks!’” Crews explained of his surprising celebrity status on the other side of the world. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, you saw that movie!’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, I love that movie! Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass and I’m homebound!’ You hear it in all these other languages!”

Crews continued of White Chicks' international appeal, “It has changed my life. You have to understand, 20 years ago, we made this movie, it was literally fart jokes, okay? And to see what it has become, year after year, every summer, a new 13-year-old discovers White Chicks.”

“And I go to the mall, and these kids run up to me! And I’m like, they could be my grandkids, and they’re like, (squealing 13-year-old accent), ‘You’re the guy from White Chicks!' And it’s so wonderful,” Crews said of the film’s lasting impact on his life and on popular culture as a whole, though he added, “I have to tell you this, what a lot of people don’t know is how hard it really was on Shawn and Marlon (Wayans).”

Crews explained of the White Chicks title stars’ struggles, “You don’t understand, it took five hours for those guys to get in makeup every day, and five hours to take it off! But they were producers of the show, so we would do a whole 12-hour (day), it would take five hours for them to put it on, we could (shoot for) maybe 10, 11 hours. Then they would have to halfway stay in makeup, and then push their own call so they could get three hours of sleep, and then wake up in this horrible makeup!”

And, after going through all that trouble, because of the insane makeup they wore in the film, the White Chicks stars probably don’t even get recognized like Crews every time they go on an exotic vacation. Meanwhile, White Chicks-lovers in the Middle East are asking for an autograph every time Karoline Leavitt comes to town.