Taraji P. Henson Calls Out Hollywood for Pay Inequity

Taraji P. Henson, who launched her acting career in the late Nineties, landed an Oscar nomination in 2009 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and earned legions of fans by playing Cookie Lyon on Empire, spoke out about how demoralizing the pay structure in Hollywood can be in a new interview. When Gayle King asked the actress why she would consider giving up acting, as she told Elle last month, the actress, who plays Shug Avery in the new musical adaptation of The Color Purple, broke down in tears.

“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do [and] getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said in the interview, which aired on Sirius XM. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ Well, I have to. The math ain’t mathin’. When you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. … There’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”

She explained how when the public hears of an actor getting $10 million for a role people shouldn’t assume that all of that money goes to the actor. “Off the top, Uncle Sam is getting 50 percent,” she said. “Now [you] have $5 million. Your team is getting 30 percent off what you gross, not after what Uncle Sam took. Now do the math. I’m only human. Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again, like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you.”

Henson also expressed dismay at excuses she hears from time to time about why a film’s producers would pay her what she perceives as a lower figure, including the idea that stories about Black people “don’t translate overseas.” Henson said she has heard that justification for more than two decades. “And I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear it,” she said. “Enough is enough. That’s why I have other [income sources] because this industry, if you let it, it will steal your soul. I refuse to let that happen.”

Henson previously voiced frustration for making $150,000 for her Benjamin Button role when she asked for $500,000. “I asked for half a million. That’s it, and they gave me [$150,000],” Henson said in 2019, according to Variety. “Does that make sense? I’m number three on the call sheet. Does that make sense to you? All I was asking was $500,000 – that’s all we were asking for.”

Gabrielle Union, who has acted alongside Henson in the Think Like a Man movies, shared her support of Henson on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Not a damn lie told,” she wrote. “Not. A. Damn. Lie. We go TO BAT for the next generation and hell even our own generation and above. We don’t hesitate to be the change that we all need to see AND it takes a toll on your mind, health, soul, and career if we’re keepn it 💯”

The Color Purple finds Henson singing opposite Fantasia Barrino, who reprises the role of Celie from the production’s successful Broadway run in 2007. The rest of the cast includes well-known actors and singers, including Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Jon Batiste, and Louis Gossett, Jr., among others.

In the Gayle King interview, the film’s director, Blitz Bazawule, echoed Henson’s disappointment, adding that he was surprised that such talented people would have to audition for the film. “The fact that each one of you had to audition for this role … roles that were second nature for you … roles that no one should even question [is wrong],” he said.

Still, Bazawule said he has hope for how the picture is perceived. “I hope the work we did breaks those terrible and discriminatory ways,” he said. “[People] get to see that we did it our way, and we won.”