As she returns to the big screen in one of this year’s most anticipated films, Taraji P. Henson is getting candid about the pay inequity she faces as a Black woman in Hollywood.
The actor became visibly emotional in footage that went viral on Wednesday following her recent conversation with Gayle King on SiriusXM, alongside fellow Color Purple star Danielle Brooks and the film’s director, Blitz Bazawule.
When the host asked about a report that claimed Taraji was considering quitting acting altogether, the Academy Award nominee began tearing up.
“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, being 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.”
The Empire actor also pointed out that her profession required her to have a team of people supporting her behind the scenes.
“I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t mathing,” Taraji explained. “Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. The fact that we’re up here, there’s a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid.”
Taraji endeared herself to a generation of television views as Cookie Lyon on Empire, for which she received a Golden Globe. Before that, she made her film acting debut in 1998’s Streetwise, and nabbed an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queenie in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt.
In 2016, she appeared alongside Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer in the smash film Hidden Figures, which received three Oscar nominations.
In The Color Purple, Taraji is part of all-star cast that also includes Fantasia Barrino. Early reviews of the film, a musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, have called it an “exhilarating, larger-than-life journey” and “a joy to watch”.
Yet despite the many accolades she’s received, Taraji admitted that she’s treated like a novice when it comes to negotiating contracts for film and TV roles.
“It seems 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,” she said. “And I’m just tired. It wears on you, you know?”
Taraji has touched on her experiences with pay disparity in a number of previous interviews. In 2019, she told Variety that she’d asked for “half a million” before signing on for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, only to ultimately receive $150,000 (£118,680) for the role.
And in an interview published earlier this month, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she’d been “fighting tooth and nail every project” for adequate pay.
“Listen, I’ve been doing this for two decades and sometimes I get tired of fighting because I know what I do is bigger than me. I know that the legacy I leave will affect somebody coming up behind me,” she told the outlet, before going on to reference other Black female actors.
“My prayer is that I don’t want these Black girls to have the same fights that me and Viola [Davis], Octavia [Spencer], we out here thugging it out.”
Among those to express support for Taraji this week was her Think Like A Man co-star Gabrielle Union.
“Not a damn lie told. Not. A. Damn. Lie,” Gabrielle wrote Wednesday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “We go TO BAT for the next generation and hell even our own generation and above.”
Taraji’s message was also co-signed by both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer on Instagram:
The Color Purple is set to hit UK cinemas in late January. Watch a video of Taraji’s interview with Gayle King below: