Sean Penn Under Fire! New Lawsuit Threatens To Expose Alleged Abuse Against Madonna—Inside The $10 Million Court Battle

The suit stems from an interview Daniels recently gave to The Hollywood Reporter, in which he said that Terrence (pictured above)—who's been arrested six times for attacking ex-wives, girlfriends and strangers—has been unfairly villainized despite doing "nothing different" from Sean.

And while that may be true, insiders say that Sean—who has served time for assault—is likely making a huge mistake by suing Daniels. "This will drudge up all the stories about him abusing Madonna," says an insider, "the very stories he wants to go away."

Sean has never been charged with domestic violence, but it was widely reported that on Dec. 28, 1988, he climbed the wall of estranged wife Madonna's Malibu home, bound and gagged her, then spent the next nine hours beating and threatening her. At one point, he allegedly threatened to cut off her hair and stick her head in a gas oven.

When he finally freed her after she promised him a sex act, she ran to her car and called the police. "I hardly recognized her as Madonna," Malibu Lt. Bill McSweeny said at the time. "She was weeping, her lip was bleeding and she had obviously been struck." Madonna filed for divorce the next day.

Although Madonna never pressed charges or spoke publicly of the alleged abuse, she will almost certainly be called as a witness if Sean's case progresses—a process that could involve even messier revelations. Even if Madonna testifies in Sean's favor, given the nearly three decades of uncontested whispers about Sean's alleged abuse, Experts say he will have a hard time proving Daniels' comment did him harm.

"How can Daniels possibly have defamed Penn if the press has been reporting these instances for decades?" says New York-based attorney Taylor Koss. "At this point, the comment by Daniels is just a mere drop in the ocean of past reported instances involving Penn."

Why Sean is filing after all these years is anyone's guess, but one insider speculates it's more about who said it than what: "It's one thing when the media runs a story, but Sean's not going to tolerate other celebrities in his own industry perpetuating this bad image. To him, Lee crossed the line."