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American actress Taraji P. Henson recently made headlines after she openly spoke about the pay disparity in Hollywood. During an appearance with Gayle King on SiriusXM radio to promote her upcoming film, The Color Purple, alongside her co-star Danielle Brooks and director Blitz Bazawule, she was asked whether the rumors that she was planning to quit acting were true.
Henson initially broke down, and once she was composed, said that she was “tired of working so hard” yet ending up “getting paid a fraction of the cost.” She also added how she was tired of hearing the same thing from many other Black actresses.
However, this is not the first time that Taraji P. Henson has talked about pay inequity in the industry. Earlier, in her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, she said that lead actors Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett “got millions” for their roles in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but she ended up making only a few thousand.
Taraji P. Henson earned less than two percent of Brad Pitt’s pay for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Taraji P. Henson earned her only Oscar nomination for “Best Supporting Actor” at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009, for her role as Queenie, the adoptive mother of Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
However, she was reportedly paid “less than 2%” of what Brad Pitt earned from the film and even had to pay for three months of location fees by herself (at New Orleans), according to her 2016 memoir Around the Way Girl.
She also added how she was paid “the lowest of six figures” while her co-leads Pitt and Cate Blanchett (who played Daisy) “got millions.”
Taraji P. Henson further wrote in her book that she could not demand fair pay as she was concerned, she might be replaced. Later, during a 2021 appearance on the podcast, Ladies First with Laura Brown, Henson mentioned how she knew that just like Pitt and Blanchett “deserved” their pay, so did she, and was not asking for something unreasonable.
The I Can Do Bad All By Myself actress also stated how she earned $150,000 but only ended up taking $40,000 home, after tax deductions and paying her team.
Netizens show solidarity towards Taraji P. Henson for facing pay inequity in Hollywood
During her latest interview with Gayle King for SiriusXM radio, Taraji P. Henson was asked whether was considering quitting acting. With tears in her eyes and a voice breaking down, she said that when the industry has so much of a pay disparity for a Black woman like her, it becomes exhausting to keep doing what she does:
“I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to… I have been fighting tooth and nail… 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,” she noted, while explaining how her salaries get divided among her team members before reaching her bank account.
Henson further continued by saying that when people hear that someone made ten million, they must realize that fifty percent of that goes to Uncle Sam (a well-known national personification of the federal government of the United States). So, with the remaining five million, one has to pay off their team, pay taxes, and much more:
“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 stated once again, teary-eyed.
She also addressed her The Color Purple co-star Danielle Brooks, sitting beside her, and said that the younger generation was also facing similar challenges and she continued her fight for those coming up behind her.
Taraji P. Henson also spoke about how studios and production houses make excuses like she isn’t bankable overseas. She elaborated:
“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. They play in your face. And I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear and just keep going. Enough is enough,” she concluded.
Since Taraji P. Henson’s interview and take on pay disparity went viral, fans came forward in her support. Here are some of the reactions from the comment section of @slightwright’s tweet on the same:
As part of the SiriusXM radio interview, Henson also shared that due to the pay inequity, she has to sustain herself via other ventures including a hair-care line called TPH by Taraji, and a mental well-being support center called The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation:
“This industry, if you let it, it will steal your soul. But I refuse to let that happen,” she stated.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first time Taraji P. Henson has spoken about pay disparity in Hollywood. Previously, the Hustle & Flow star told Ellen Pompeo in 2019 during Variety’s Actors on Actors show that she constantly had to prove herself that she was a bankable actress, even after so many years in the industry.
“If I was getting 5 or 10 million a movie, I wouldn’t work so much. I’m working like that because I have to pay bills. I have dreams. I have aspirations,” she had said to explain the necessity for her working constantly.
Likewise, in a 2020 interview with Business Insider, Taraji P. Henson said she would continue her fight to demand equal pay until she was “blue in the face.”
