Taraji P. Henson explains why she fired her team after success of her Empire character

Taraji P. Henson has recently explained why she fired her team after the success of her popular character on Empire.

Speaking to SAG-AFTRA Foundation via Deadline, Henson, who starred as Cookie Lyon on all six seasons of the Fox drama, said, “Firing everybody after Cookie. Everybody had to 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,” she stated.

Henson shared her team “wanted was another Cookie show, and I said, ‘I’ll do it, but it has to be right. The people deserve, she’s too beloved for y’all to ruin’”.

“And so, when they didn’t get it right, I was like, ‘Well, that’s it,’ and they had nothing else. ‘You’re all fired,” disclosed the actress.

In her previous interview with Gayle King on SiriusXM for The Color Purple promotion, Henson addressed pay disparity in Hollywood and almost quitting the industry altogether.

“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, 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.’ I have to,” dished the actress.

Henson added, “The math ain’t math-ing. And 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.”