Taraji P. Henson Says Taking the Focus Away From The Color Purple is Unfair

Two weeks ago Taraji P. Henson stole the thunder from The Color Purple premier after starting a racially charged conversation about pay disparity during the movie rollout [click here if you missed that].

Now Taraji says it's unfair that the attention was taken away from the movie...

From Today

“I hope they can focus back onto this film, because right now, to me, it feels like what I said is now becoming louder than this beautiful film,” Henson tells TODAY.com, while promoting her Always Discreet brand partnership."

“And that’s not fair to me, or anybody in the film,” Henson continues, “because the film deals with women who are oppressed — who live in an oppressed system. Men and women. And all the characters in that film except for the white people. So that movie is about healing. That movie is about sisterhood.”

Speaking with TODAY.com, Henson addressed Winfrey’s comments and the recent headlines, saying, “There’s nothing to spin!”

“I see what’s going on, but there’s nothing spin there,” she tells TODAY. “You saw the woman doing the electric slide in the dust with us. She was right there in the field doing the electric slide. She held our hands the entire production. She showed up, she was there — there are producers that don’t show up on set.”

The “Empire” star also backed up Winfrey’s comments to ET, in an interview in which she said that she “would step in and do whatever (she) could to make it right” on set.

“You know, she called me, she called me personally,” Henson tells TODAY.com. “Not my team, not my people — me. And asked me, ‘Taraji, if there’s anything you need, you let me know.’ And I said it with a shaking voice, I was like, ‘Well, yeah,’ — since she asked. And I told her and she fixed everything the next day.”

Though Winfrey had noted in her ET interview she “was not in charge” of the film’s budget because it was Warner Bros.’ responsibility, Henson still applauded the producer for stepping up, adding “That’s what a producer is supposed to do.”

“And what you’re not gonna do is pit two Black women together — not on my watch,” she adds.