Taraji P. Henson Fired Her Team When They Couldn’t Devise Ways To Capitalize On Her ‘Empire’ Role

Hunty, one thing about Taraji P. Henson is that she knows her worth and won’t let anyone diminish that. The Empire star proudly revealed she fired her team for their incompetence to capitalize on the Cookie Lyon hype.

We know how paramount and emblematic Cookie was in Empire, as did Henson, so she took immediate action to keep Cookie alive. But her team failed to create a new avenue for her and them to profit from the Cookie Lyon hype before it was too late, she shared in a Dec. 19 sit-down interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation as part of the press run for The Color Purple.

“Everybody had to fucking go,” she said, earning approval from the audience. “Where is my deal? Where is my commercial? Cookie was top of the fashion game. Where is my endorsement? What did you have set up for after this?”

The 53-year-old Howard alum said it was why the public hadn’t seen her in anything for a while.

“They had nothing set up,” Henson continued. “All they wanted was another Cookie show, and I said I’ll do it, but it has to be right. [Cookie’s] too beloved for y’all to fuck it up. And, so, when they didn’t get it right, I was like, well, that’s it, and then they had nothing else. You’re all f—g fired.”

Henson said the decision wasn’t easy because she had a bit of Stockholm syndrome, where a victim forms a psychological bond with their abuser(s) as a coping mechanism.

“Baby, it’s very real,” she said. “You are the prize. Don’t you ever forget that? You are the talent. You are their check. Don’t ever forget that. They work for you, and if they’re not, somebody else will do it. But I had that for years because I stayed with the same team for years.”

Henson doesn’t regret it because she knows there’s more to come.

Henson recently co-starred in the 2023 rendition of the iconic movie The Color Purple alongside Fantasia Barrino, Halle Bailey, Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins and Ciara.

The newest adaptation of the 1985 classic broke the Christmas box office record during its opening week. The movie earned $18.1 million on the first day, making it the second-best showing ever for a film premiering on Christmas Day since 2009.

In 2018, Viola Davis interviewed with Tina Brown, host of Women in the World, and discussed how actresses like Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver had the same path to fame as her, but she never got the same pay or job opportunities as them.

“Yet, I have to constantly get on that phone, and I have fabulous agents, by the way, but I have to get on that phone, and people say, ‘You’re a Black Meryl Streep. You are, and we love you. We love you. There’s no one like you.’ Okay, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth. You give me what I’m worth.”