It’s no secret that we are facing some seriously pivotal issues. Everyone’s talking about inflation, but what doesn’t feel like inflation? That’s equal pay for Black actresses. Queen Latifah and Taraji P. Henson may have just taken their fight for equal pay to new heights, but this struggle has been long overdue, and they certainly made that known. Taraji stood up for all of us; the reason she thanked Henson is that this actress has been fighting for this for a while.

Women are paid less, period. This is no different from what happens in the world; women tend to be paid less than their male counterparts. I agree with that. Not just her—Queen Latifah has also been active in this fight. The fact is, if these women were chosen for that movie, they should have been taken care of from the very beginning.

If you’ve been following the news over the past couple of weeks, you would know that there have been discussions about pay disparities in Hollywood. Contrary to what many might think, these discussions have actually been ongoing for decades. The difference between then and now is that, unlike before, when the battle was strictly against powerful men in the entertainment industry, it now seems to be a fellow Black woman who is undermining other actresses. It seems Queen Latifah and Taraji P. Henson are fed up with this.

To prove how serious this issue is, these women have taken to one of the biggest stages in the entertainment world to call out the very woman at the center of this battle. I haven’t mentioned her name yet, but I will tell you that she has a very successful TV show and hosts it. If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m referring to none other than the powerful Oprah Winfrey.

As someone who has felt the cold embrace of discrimination, you’d expect that this woman would be the last person involved in anything like that. But surprise, surprise! What’s worse is that getting involved in these stories is just the beginning for the famous hostess. Reports say she’s done it to others and might have even played a role in ensuring other Black actresses were paid less in projects she wasn’t even involved in. In the eyes of people like Queen Latifah and Henson, this is even worse than the other kinds of roadblocks they’ve faced in their lives. The reason is that being in the entertainment space together and fighting through similar struggles is supposed to be something they can relate to and fight against, but here they are, getting stabbed in the back.

This seems to be why these women finally gathered the courage to take their fight to the gates of Hollywood. And when I tell you it set off a chain reaction, that’s the understatement of the year. Fans, fellow celebrities, and virtually everyone involved in the entertainment sphere have reportedly spoken in support of both women. But realizing that their choice to speak now might have been aimed at exposing Winfrey, people have allegedly been discovering even worse situations where the famous host intentionally undermined Black actresses. Now, it seems because of Queen Latifah and Henson, Winfrey might be up against a lot more than just a legion of fans.

It doesn’t become unreal until you see how vivid the picture these women painted of her gets. It’s a scary thing to speak your truth, but I urge you all to do so because at the end of the day, that’s all we have. As they say, the truth will set you free. When you’ve been in the film industry for decades, it’s almost 100% certain that people would take whatever you say about the space seriously because of your wealth of experience. This caveat is precisely what Taraji P. Henson and Queen Latifah recently leveraged to show the world who their favorite hostess really might be, but they didn’t exactly take the most direct approach.

According to reports, during this year’s award ceremony, Queen Latifah and Taraji P. Henson teamed up and spoke out against the pay inequality for Black actresses in Hollywood. As part of her opening comments at the NAACP Image Awards, Queen Latifah talked about the struggles that Americans are facing, like inflation, which prompted Taraji P. Henson to say that Black actresses continue to be underpaid in Hollywood. Henson, who won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her riveting performance in “The Color Purple” as Shug Avery, also took to the stage for a soul-stirring speech documenting the aftermath of her remarks about unequal pay for Black actresses.

“It’s no secret we are facing some seriously pivotal issues,” Latifah said during her monologue. She added, “Everyone is talking about inflation. You know what’s not feeling inflation? Equal pay for Black actresses.” Latifah then said, “Thank you, Taraji, for standing up for all of us.” Henson took the stage soon after to receive the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for “The Color Purple.” During her acceptance speech, she took the opportunity to thank those who stood by her during the press tour for the movie when she initially called out the pay inequality that exists in Hollywood.

The movie press she mentioned happened to be produced by Winfrey. This is the one factor that gave away who both actresses were referring to because tell me the odds of it being someone else. But even if you don’t believe in odds, there’s a very clear paper trail. Henson had already raised alarm about payment disparities in the industry; however, the timing for her words couldn’t have been more perfect, as it came out around the time she was promoting “The Color Purple,” which just so happened to be produced by this same controversial talk show host we’ve been discussing.

“I’ve been getting paid, and I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for every project to get that same freaking quote. And it’s a slap in the face when people go, ‘Oh girl, you work all the time. You’re always working.’ Well, damn it, I have to. It’s not because I wish I could do two movies a year; I have to work because the math isn’t mathing, and I have bills,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

It didn’t take fans long to connect the dots about who she was referring to. To many, the fact that Henson chose the movie’s promotion to discuss these matters led them to believe she was making a direct criticism of the movie’s producers, specifically Winfrey. Besides that, the situation grew even worse after a different instance when TikTok users started criticizing two videos from a press conference to promote the same movie. TikTokers said Henson and Winfrey did not get along and that the acrimony made the actress appear uncomfortable around her producer.

After paying extra attention to the two women’s body language, they noted how Henson quickly looked away from Winfrey and how she tried to hold back tears. This TikToker also mentioned that Henson was the only actress Winfrey didn’t actually touch among everyone there. All closed up, Henson tried to open up but Winfrey seemed to pull away, trying to find an escape, going right behind Danielle Brooks.

Henson also spoke about her experience on the set in a recent interview with The New York Times, revealing that she and her co-stars on “The Color Purple” had to fight for many things behind the scenes, including transportation and security to the film’s Atlanta set. Initially, the production offered the cast rental cars and expected the actors to drive themselves to the set. “They gave us rental cars and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to the set in Atlanta; this is an insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they’re robbing people? What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?’” Henson said.

She added, “So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me? I’m not asking for the moon.’ They said, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody.’ Well, do it for everybody. It’s stuff like that—stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for.” She mentioned how she had to fight for trailers that weren’t infested with bugs while on the set of “Empire.”

During a recent Q&A for the film, Danielle Brooks revealed that the actors did not initially get their own dressing rooms when they showed up for rehearsals, nor was food provided to them at that time. “I remember when we first came and were doing rehearsals, they put us all in the same space,” Brooks said. “We didn’t have our own dressing rooms at the time. This was my first studio film. Sometimes you come in saying, ‘Okay, I’ll take whatever they give me. I’m just happy to be here.’ But Taraji spoke up for us. She showed me how to do that.”

Like Taraji, Queen Latifah has also been in this fight since as far back as 2017. “Women are paid less, period. This is no different from what happens in the world; women tend to be paid less than their male counterparts,” she said during an interview with Essence. The rapper-turned-actress spoke about how pay disparities in Hollywood have been going on for much longer than most people realize. At the time, she said, “There’s nothing different from what happens in the world; women getting paid less than their male counterparts.”

Latifah went further to clarify that it’s not just male counterparts but that Black women tend to be paid less in general. Her way of dealing with this was by pushing for offers far above what they would ordinarily be expected to take for roles. She also mentioned that owning the content being created is also how they expect to achieve change. “We don’t just take what we’re offered; we always push for more and realize what our worth is, but we also realize that we can create these opportunities ourselves.”