- Taraji P. Henson cried during a recent interview while discussing pay inequity in Hollywood.
- Henson said she's tired of fighting for better pay and renegotiating salaries.
"The Color Purple" star Taraji P. Henson tearfully spoke about her ongoing, exhausting challenge with pay inequity in Hollywood.
"I'm just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost," she said when asked if she planned on quitting acting during a recent interview with Gayle King on SiriusXM radio. "I'm tired of hearing my sisters saying the same thing over and over."
"I hear people go, 'You work a lot.' I have to," she continued. "The math ain't mathing. And when you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don't do this alone."
Henson broke down how salaries get divvied up before reaching her bank account.
"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 have $5 million. Your team is getting 30% off what you gross, not after what Uncle Sam took. Now do the math."
"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 said, crying.
Turning to her "Color Purple" costar, Danielle Brooks, Henson said that the issue extends to the younger generations, too.
"If I can't fight for them coming up behind me, then what the fuck am I doing?" Henson said, continuing to cry, wiping tears from her face.
Henson said that another hardship is being told that she's not bankable overseas, or studios making excuses.
"Twenty-plus years in the game and I hear the same thing, and I see what you do for another production and when it's time for us to go to bat, you don't have any money," she said. "They play in your face. And I'm just supposed to smile and grin and bear and just keep going. Enough is enough."
Henson said that her negative experience is why she has other ventures, like her own hair-care line called TPH by Taraji and The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation for mental wellness.
"This industry, if you let it, it'll steal your soul," she said. "But I refuse to let that happen."
Her frustration was echoed by "Think Like a Man" costar Gabrielle Union, who wrote on X: "Not a damn lie told."
"We go TO BAT for the next generation and hell even our own generation and above," she said. "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."
Henson rose to fame as Shug in the 2005 film "Hustle & Flow." Three years later, she starred as Queenie in David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Henson earned an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as the adoptive mom of Brad Pitt's titular character.
In her 2016 memoir, "Around the Way Girl," Henson said that she was paid "the lowest of six figures" while Pitt and costar Cate Blanchett "got millions."
The actor said she earned "less than 2%" of what Pitt received and had to pay three months of location fees out of pocket. She said that she didn't push back on her pay due to concern that she'd be replaced.
She credited Tyler Perry, who cast her as the lead in "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" for paying her fairly (she earned $500,000) and raising her baseline quote, which had a ripple effect in future negotiations.
During an appearance on the podcast "Ladies First with Laura Brown" in 2021, Henson said that Pitt and Blanchett "deserved" their "Benjamin Button" salaries, but she also felt that her asking price was reasonable.
Henson said that she earned $150,000, but ended up with around $40,000 after taxes and payments to her team were deducted.
Speaking to Ellen Pompeo for Variety's "Actors on Actors" in 2019, Henson said that she's constantly tasked with proving that she's a bankable actor.
Henson, who's recognized for her Emmy-nominated role as Cookie Lyon on "Empire," said she took advantage of the momentum of the show and continued working out of necessity.
"If I was getting 5 or 10 million a movie, I wouldn't work so much," she said. "I'm working like that because I have bills to pay. I have dreams. I have aspirations."
In a 2020 interview with Business Insider, Henson said she's going to continue pushing to be paid her worth.
"I can fight until I'm blue in the face," she said. "Until I have the people on the other side saying, 'OK,' I'm just a loudmouth fighting. And I'm not just a loudmouth. I'm really fighting for something that's gonna benefit us all."