Sean Penn Suing Lee Daniels For $10M For Claiming He’s A Wife Beater

Sean Penn is swinging back at director Lee Daniels for accusing him of being violent to women — hitting him with a $10 million defamation suit.

In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the “Dead Man Walking” star says Daniels defamed him when he compared him to scandal-scarred “Empire” star Terrence Howard in a recent interview.

“That poor boy, (Terrence) ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he’s some f---in’ demon. That’s a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America,” Daniels told the Hollywood Reporter.

The suit says the statements about Penn — “one of this generation’s most highly acclaimed and greatest artists and humanitarians” — are “reckless false and defamatory.”

“Specifically, in purporting to ‘defend’ the ongoing legal and related troubles of . . . the star of Daniels’ television show ‘Empire’ — who has reportedly, and publicly, admitted to physically abusing at least one woman and reportedly been arrested five times for violent acts against women — Daniels has falsely asserted and/or implied that Penn is guilty of ongoing, continuing violence against women,” the suit says.

That’s not the case, the suit says.

While “he has certainly had several brushes with the law, Penn (unlike Howard) has never been arrested, much less convicted, for domestic violence, as his ex-wives (including Madonna) would confirm and attest,” the suit says.

“Nor has Penn admitted to “slap(ping) a woman or abusing others (as Howard has also reportedly admitted, reportedly asserted that he was acting in self-defense.)”

The suit cites a police report that quotes Howard as saying, “I broke down the door and hit my wife,” and an interview with Rolling Stone, where Howard is quoted as saying, “She was talking to me real strong, and I lost my mind and slapped her in front of the kids.”

The suit says Daniels’ statements “have caused Penn great anguish and emotional distress,” and injured his “credibility and reputation in his personal life, occupation and philanthropic activities.”

A rep for Daniels did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Penn had a notoriously stormy relationship with Madonna, whom he was married to for three years in the late 1980s.

She filed an assault claim against the “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” actor in Los Angeles in 1989, but later withdrew the complaint.

"Madonna asked that there be no criminal charges pressed. There is no other evidence with which to base a criminal charge so there won't be a criminal charge filed," a spokesman for the DA’s office said at the time.

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