Actor Denzel Washington has become a minister and was just baptized, according to TMZ.
TMZ published photos showing Washington getting baptized. The religious moment occurred on December 21 at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in New York City, TMZ reported.
The entertainment news site described Washington as being “dressed in a white robe and burgundy stole adorned with crosses.” He also obtained a minister’s license, TMZ reported. According to ABC News, Washington is the son of a minister, although he rejected the idea of becoming one himself growing up.
Denzel Washington Is Now Considered ‘a Member of the Clergy,’ the Report Says
GettyDenzel Washington.A minister declared that Washington was now “a member of the clergy of the Churches of God in Christ Worldwide,” TMZ reported.
Denzel was accompanied at the ceremony by his wife Pauletta, according to TMZ.
Washington’s official Instagram page is silent on the religious experience. Instead, he has posted stills from his new movie, “Gladiator II.”
Denzel Washington Was Raised in a Religious Family, Reports Say
GettyDenzel Washington.Washington is the son of a minister, and he described to ABC News in 2016 how he initially went in a different direction.
“I was mischievous,” he told ABC. “My three closest friends did quite a bit of time [in jail] … decades.”
He described his mother Lennis Washington as being his biggest influence in that interview, saying, she “had enough sense to get me out of that situation before it was going to be my turn” going to jail.
Washington told ABC that, as a child, going to church felt “like a job” since his dad was a minister so he never considered becoming one himself back then.
“You had to go at night, you had to go in the afternoon,” he told ABC. “I rejected it in my early teens’ years, working stuff out.”
Instead, he dabbled with other professions before turning to acting, ABC reported.
“I was actually pre-med. I thought, ‘You go to college, be a doctor.’ Then, I went into political science, pre-law … I found out I wasn’t doctor material, I found out I wasn’t lawyer material, then I started studying journalism,” Washington told ABC.
That led him to acting while he was still in college, he told ABC, adding, “You get to experience different lives. When I did the movie ‘Flight,’ I got to get in the flight simulator. I didn’t have to learn how to land, because we were gonna crash anyway.”
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