Henson has previously spoken out about wanting to quit Hollywood over the pay disparity she has experienced as a Black actress.
Taraji P. Henson says that of all the smart business decisions she has made in Hollywood, one stands out as the best.
In a new interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the 53-year-old star of The Color Purple said that firing her entire team after her time on FOX's hit series Empire was one of the most salient.
"Firing everybody after Cookie," she answered while speaking with Variety's Angelique Jackson. "Everybody had to f**kin' go."
The Hidden Figures actress -- who played Cookie Lyon for six seasons prior to the show's end in 2020 -- pointed to her character's many iconic attributes when explaining why she thought her team would be ready and able to capitalize on her fan-favorite role after the show stopped.
"Where is my deal? Where's my commercial? Cookie was at the top of the fashion game. Where is my endorsement? What did you have set up for after this? That's why you all haven’t seen me in so long. They had nothing set up," Henson said during the sit-down.
The one thing her team did bring to her after Empire had ended was the idea of a Cookie-centric spinoff, which she said she was only open to if it had been done "right."
"All they wanted was another Cookie show, and I said, 'I'll do it, but it has to be right. The people deserve- she’s too beloved for y'all to f**k it up.' And so, when they didn’t get it right, I was like, 'Well, that’s it,' and they had nothing else. 'You're all f**kin’ fired,'" she said.
This interview comes after the Oscar-nominated actress recently broke down while discussing Hollywood's significant pay inequality.
In a conversation with Gayle King for SiriusXM radio alongside Danielle Brooks and The Color Purple director Blitz Bazawule, things became somber when Henson opened up about her frustrations over the industry's lack of fair pay, implying that the longstanding issues are determining factors in whether she gives up acting for good.
"I'm just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, [and] getting paid a fraction of the cost," she said. "I'm tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people say 'you work a lot!' I have to. The math ain't mathing."
Henson pointed out that a successful Hollywood career requires a team of people who deserve to be paid. "Big bills come with what we do. We don't do this alone," she said. "The fact that we're up here, there's a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid."
"When you hear someone go, 'Such and such made $10 million,' that didn't make it to their account," Henson continued. "Off the top, Uncle Sam is getting 50%. Now [you] have $5 million. Your team is getting 30% -- or whatever you work out -- 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," she lamented. "I'm tired. It wears on you. What does that mean? What is that telling me? If I can't fight for them coming up behind me, then what the f**k am I doing?"
This isn't the first time that Henson has spoken out on the subject. In her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, she claimed she experienced a considerable pay discrepancy while working on the 2008 movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Compared to her co-stars, including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Henson wrote that she was paid "the equivalent of sofa change." She said her paycheck was in the "lowest" six figures and claimed she had to pay her hotel bill for several months during production, an arrangement she called an "insult."
In 2019, she expanded on her claims while speaking with Variety, saying she was initially offered $100,000 for the role that later earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Henson claimed she was able to bump up the salary to $150,000, but that it was still far below the $500,000 she was expecting to make as the third-billed actor in a David Fincher-directed studio movie.
"I want to make this very clear - I'm not saying that Brad or Cate shouldn't have gotten what they got," Henson said at the time. "They put a**es in seats, so give them their money. They deserve it. I'm not saying they shouldn't get what they're getting. I was just asking for half a million - that's all. That's it. When I was doing Benjamin Button, I wasn't worth a million yet. My audience was still getting to know me. We thought we were asking for what was fair for me, at the time."
"I asked for half a million. That's it," Henson added. "And they gave me $100,000. 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."
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