“You gotta enable people to be better,” Taraji P. Henson said, reflecting on the importance of using her platform for advocacy.
Taraji P. Henson is thinking about the future and encouraging her fans to do the same. Throughout her career, the award-winning actress has been an advocate for causes ranging from mental health to politics. Whether through her nonprofit work or speaking engagements, Henson explained why advocacy is so important to her in a recent interview with HuffPost.
“I understand God put me here for a reason and it just wasn’t for vanity, for me to be pretty and be on carpets and just get rich and buy pretty things and rub it in everybody’s face,” she told the publication. “You gotta enable people to be better.”
This summer, Henson sounded the alarm on the importance of the elections while hosting the BET Awards. During the awards ceremony, the star went viral for shining a light on the dangers of Project 2025.
“Show up and show out when it’s time to vote because it’s not just about the presidential election,” Henson told the audience. “It’s time for us to play chess, not checkers. It’s about making decisions that will affect us as human beings…our careers…our next generations […] Pay attention, it’s not a secret. Look it up! They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game.”
Project 2025 is a conservative policy agenda billed as a playbook for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. While former President Trump has tried to distance himself from the controversial policy, his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has showcased ties to the conservative plan.
“For me, I was just concerned. I was nervous. I honestly spoke out of anxiety. ’Cause I was like, no one’s paying attention. I don’t understand a lot of the stuff they be talking about, but I know right from wrong,” she added, explaining her state of mind during her viral BET moment.
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In 2023, Henson also went viral for shedding light on the pay disparity women, especially Black women, face in Hollywood. While promoting the new adaption of “The Color Purple,” the actress revealed how the inequalities almost made her quit acting.
“I am just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do [and] getting paid a fraction of the cost. I am tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot,’ [and] I have to. The math ain’t mathing. When you start working a lot, you know you have a team. Big bills come with what we do, we don’t do this alone … there’s a whole entire team behind us [and] they have to get paid” she said, as previously reported by theGrio. “I am only human and it seems every time I do something and I break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate I am at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired.”
Now almost a year later, Henson hopes to eventually reach a point in her career where she can say “You know what, I’ll take this year [or] the next two years off,” which she refers to as her retirement.
“When I say ‘retirement,’ I mean not that I will never, ever work again. But I want to finally get to a place where I don’t have to do an acting job to pay bills,” she said. “I think that’s when it’ll get back to being fun again for me…It’s just that right now I do still rely a lot on my acting income to pay my bills and make things happen. My brand is getting bigger. Things are growing. Still, I don’t think sitting out for me is an option.”
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