Taraji P. Henson recently spoke on the pay disparity that she has faced in Hollywood and how it has affected her, financially as well as emotionally.
Taraji P. Henson has a lot of thoughts about the pay disparity in Hollywood.
The 53-year-old actor expressed her frustrations through tears while doing press for her upcoming film “The Color Purple.”
“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson told Gayle King on SiriusXM. “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 mathing.”
She said entertainers often have a team behind them that shares in any paycheck — and that’s not to mention the chunk claimed by Uncle Sam.
“When you start working a lot, you know, you have a team,” the “Empire” star continued. “Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. There’s a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid.”
Henson said her previous accomplishments — which include several Emmy nominations and an Academy Award nomination — don’t carry weight when it comes time to negotiate a salary, a problem affecting many Black female actors.
“Every time I do something and I 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 just tired,” she explained.
