Oprah says that there is no bad blood between her and The Color Purple actress Taraji P. Henson, who has over the last few weeks shared her poor experiences with things like pay and on-set accommodations on the film, as well as other projects.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Winfrey addressed online speculation over Henson’s treatment on the film after the award-winning actress opened up about her pay equity struggles while on The Color Purple press tour. Winfrey, who is a producer on the film and appeared in the original 1985 non-musical version directed by Steven Spielberg, told the outlet she “heard I was trending yesterday” after more comments from Henson, this time in the New York Times about transportation to set and trailers while filming the movie.
“People are saying that I was not supporting Taraji. Taraji will tell you herself that I’ve been the greatest champion of this film. Championing not only the behind the scenes projection but also everything that everybody needed,” Winfrey said. “I’m not in charge of the budget because that’s Warner Bros., you know. That’s the way the studio system works.”
She continued: “We as producers, everybody gets their salary … negotiated by your team. And so, whenever I heard there was an issue or there was a problem — there was a problem with cars or the problem with their food — I would step in and do whatever I could to make it right. And I believe that she would even vouch for that and say that is true.”
In an interview that published last Friday, Henson — who plays Shug Avery in the Blitz Bazawule-directed movie musical — revealed she had “fought” and secured a number of things for herself and her fellow Black female co-stars during filming.
“They gave us rental cars, and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they robbing people. What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?” she said. “So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon. They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’”
“Well, do it for everybody!” she added. “It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for.”
Henson also continued to discuss her lack of pay, despite appearing in Oscar-winning movies and leading Empire, once a TV ratings Goliath. “I haven’t had a raise since [the 2018 film] Proud Mary, and I still didn’t get a raise. They don’t care, they’re always looking for a deal and trying to pay you the least amount. I remember on Empire, I was fighting over trailers,” she said.
At another point in the interview, Henson clarified that while on the Fox drama she was “fighting for trailers that wasn’t infested with bugs.” During a SAG-AFTRA Foundation interview, Henson revealed she had fired her previous team after they failed to capitalize on her success with Empire. “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?” she said. “That’s why you all haven’t seen me in so long. They had nothing set up.”
Back in December, a tearful Henson discussed the difficulty of spending years working in the industry and not seeing pay increases and treatment reflective of her experience and notability. “I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious about what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost. I’m tried of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired,” she said in during an appearance on Gayle King‘s Sirius XM radio show that went viral.
Part of the issue, Henson noted, is that when an actor is paid, they are not only paying themselves. “When you start working a lot, you know, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone,” she explained. “There’s a whole entire team behind us. They have to get paid.”
Still, “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 previously told The Hollywood Reporter in a cover story for the now Golden Globe-nominated Color Purple that she’s “been fighting tooth and nail every project to get that same freaking [fee] quote. And it’s a slap in the face when people go, ‘Oh girl, you work all the time. You always working.’ Well, goddammit, I have to. It’s not because I wish I could do two movies a year and that’s that. I have to work because the math ain’t mathing. And I have bills.”
“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,” Henson added. “Otherwise, why am I doing this? For my own vanity? There’s no blessing in that. I’ve tried twice to walk away [from the business]. But I can’t, because if I do, how does that help the ones coming up behind me?”
While online critics have cast part of the blame for Henson’s challenges on Oprah, the actress took to Instagram during The Color Purple press tour to personally thank the producer and media mogul in a photo featuring them on the Empire State Building in New York. “Ms. OPRAH has been nothing less than a steady and solid beacon of light to ALL OF THE CAST of The Color Purple!!!” Henson wrote. “She told me personally to reach out to her for ANYTHING I needed, and I did! It took ONE CALL… ONE CONVERSATION… and ONE DECISION MAKING BLACK WOMAN to make me feel heard.”
As for Winfrey, she told Entertainment Tonight that she’s “all for everybody being the greatest and rising to meet the rising of their own life.”
“There was something online about us being separated at the top of the Empire State Building. On that particular day, we were so cold, so I don’t know what kind of body language people were talking about,” she added. “I was literally just trying to stay warm and that was the fourth thing we had done. There’s no validity to there being a thing between Taraji and I.”
THR has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.
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