Taraji P. Henson has revealed that she once fired her whole team of staff for failing to capitalise on the success of Empire.
The actress played Cookie Lyon, the drug dealer-turned-entrepreneur and wife of Terrence Howard’s Lucious Lyon, in all six seasons of the Fox series.
In a new interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, she was asked about the best business move she had taken in her career to date.
“Firing everybody after Cookie,” she replied. “Everybody had to fuckin’ go. Where is my deal? Where’s my commercial? Cookie was at the top of the fashion game. Where is my endorsement? What did you have set up for after this? That’s why you all haven’t seen me in so long. They had nothing set up.”
In addition to Empire, Henson is also known for her roles in the films Hustle & Flow, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Hidden Figures, and is set to star in the new film adaptation of The Color Purple, which is released in UK cinemas on January 26.
In another recent interview, Henson broke down when talking about the pay disparity that she has faced during her time in Hollywood.
She was asked whether it was true that she had considered quitting acting because of it. Fighting back tears, she said, “I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do and getting paid a fraction of the cost.”
“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 math-ing. When you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”
This isn’t the first time that Taraji P. Henson has brought up the issue of pay disparity. In 2021, Henson shared that she was “gutted” when she took home just $40,000 for her role in Benjamin Button. That was far less than what she had asked for, which she said “at that time of my career, was fair to the ticket sales that I would contribute to this big film”.