Jada Pinkett Smith Says Pay Disparity “Has a Lot to Do” With Why She Acts Less, Recalls Being Told “You Don’t Need It. You’re Married to Will.”

Jada Pinkett Smith praised Taraji P. Henson for speaking up concerning her experience with the pay disparity in Hollywood while showing up on NPR’s It’s Been a Min.

Pinkett Smith was asked as a Black Hollywood expert if she really felt Henson’s words proved out and exactly how inequality has actually formed her occupation.

“Absolutely,” Pinkett Smith stated. “My heart broke for Taraji, and I was also happy [to see] how courageous she was to speak about it in the way that she did.”

“One of the things with Taraji is that she is the breadwinner of her family. Her pressures would be different than mine. I have to put that out front, because if it’s time to walk away, that’s not always the solution,” clarified the starlet.“Because what people don’t understand with us as Black entertainers, we carry a lot of people with us.”

When the host raised exactly how Pinkett Smith being married to a “hugely successful Hollywood megastar” might make being paid properly harder, she stated,“Yes, people would literally say, ‘Well, you don’t need it. You’re married to Will [Smith].’”

When asked if component of the reason she does not serve as long as she utilized to is due to this kind of therapy, Pinkett Smith stated, “That has a lot to do with it and also wanting to get on the other side to help remedy that as a producer.”

She clarified why she chooses functioning behind the video camera, keeping in mind,“It’s not to say that I won’t get in front of the camera, but what it takes for me to get in front of the camera, it’s more. Just in regards to the kind of roles that I want to play or that interest me. And I’m thinking about directing.”

In December, Henson obtained honest concerning the battles she’s dealt with throughout her occupation in a Hollywood Press reporter cover tale for The Shade Purple along with Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino and the movie’s manufacturer Oprah Winfrey. “I’ve been getting paid and I’ve been fighting tooth and nail every project to get that same freaking [fee] quote,” she stated with splits in her eyes. “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.”

She revealed a comparable belief days later on while showing up on Gayle King’s Sirius XM radio program. When asked by King if she’s thought about stopping acting, the starlet obtained psychological and stated while choking back splits, “I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious about 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.”