Denzel Washington Baptized, Becomes Ordained Minister at Harlem Church

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Still riding high off the success of Gladiator II (his biggest box office hit to date) Denzel Washington is closing out 2024 with a spiritual win – as the veteran actor was recently baptized and became a licensed minister.

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With his wife, Pauletta Washington, there for support, Washington was baptized Saturday (Dec. 21) at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ, located in Harlem.

“Forty-six years later, here I’m still standing next to him as only God will have it,” Pauletta said. “So I’m very proud of you. You are the head of our house and you have set a great example for our children, who are now adult children who know the difference because we have shown them the difference.”

Check out the clip below.

The timing is interesting, as it comes not long after Washington revealed his past issues with alcohol in a far-ranging interview for Esquire Magazine’s Winter 2024 issue. The interview was released in conjunction with promotion for his starring role in Gladiator II.

The Academy Award-winner detailed how he had a preference for wine and talked about drinking due to being “bitter” after losing out on the Oscar in 1999 for his portrayal of wrongly-imprisoned boxer Ruben “Hurricane” Carter in The Hurricane to controversial actor Kevin Spacey for his role in American Beauty. “Wine is very tricky,” Washington said. “It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden. And part of it was we built this big house in 1999 with a ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar, and I learned to drink the best. So I’m gonna drink my ’61s and my ’82s and whatever we had.”

The Equalizer actor stressed that it never interfered with his acting work because of his self-imposed restraint. “I’d call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and say, Send me two bottles, the best of this or that. And my wife’s saying, Why do you keep ordering just two? I said, Because if I order more, I’ll drink more. So I kept it to two bottles, and I would drink them both over the course of the day,” he recalled, continuing: “I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work—I could do both. However many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom.Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.”

Earlier this month, the 69-year-old actor made history courtesy of his role in the sword-and-sandal epic Gladiator II. Washington was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his portrayal of Macrinus in the swords-and-sandals epic.

It is his eleventh Golden Globe nomination, setting a new record for Black performers.

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