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Hollywood can sometimes be daunting and Taraji P. Henson recently shared her experience when it came to pay transparency. In a conversation with Gayle King, The Color Purple actress tearfully told the news personality that she was tired of not getting paid fairly as a Black actress.
“I’m tired of hearing my sisters saying the same thing over and over,” she said, claiming that Black actresses get paid less in Hollywood. “I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t mathing.”
“Know that off the top, Uncle Sam is getting 50%. Your team is getting 30% of whatever you gross. Now do the math,” she said of the taxes actresses receive that then have to be stretched to pay her team for their efforts.
“Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone,” Henson said noting that she has to pay her team for their work to get her where she is now. “The fact that we’re up here, there’s a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid.”
She then tearfully explained how it has been effecting her and how breaking those barriers are not easy.
“I’m only human and 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. And I’m just tired,” she explained. “It wears on you, you know, 'cause what does that mean? What does that tell me?”
“They play in your face. And I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear and just keep going,” she continued. “Enough is enough.”
Henson also said that in this industry, it's important to be entrepreneurial and to make sure that your side hustles can also help pay some bills.
“I have other things because this industry if you let it, it’ll steal your soul. But I refuse to let that happen,” she insisted.
Taraji P. Henson stars alongside Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino, Halle Bailey, Corey Hawkins, Colman Domingo, Ciara, H.E.R., Deon Cole, and more in The Color Purple. The film hits theaters on Christmas Day.
