Taraji P. Henson Says She Fired Her Entire Team After ‘Empire’ Because They “Had Nothing Set Up” To Continue Her Success: “Everybody Had To F**king Go”

The Color Purple star Taraji P. Henson recently looked back on the “best business move” she made in her career: firing her whole team.

During an interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, the Empire actress revealed she made the shocking decision to fire her entire team after they failed to capitalize on her successful run on the Fox drama.

“Everybody had to f**kin’ go. Where is my deal? Where’s my commercial? Cookie was at the top of the fashion game,” she said. “Where is my endorsement? What did you have set up for after this? That’s why you all haven’t seen me in so long. They had nothing set up.”

She received a Golden Globe Award and an NAACP Image Award for her performance as Cookie Lyon, the iconic wife to Terrence Howard‘s Lucious Lyon. She was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

The actress explained that her team was more focused on getting a spin-off show focusing on Cookie, which she says she was willing to do at the time.

“All they wanted was another Cookie show, and I said, ‘I’ll do it, but it has to be right. The people deserve, she’s too beloved for y’all to f—k it up.’ And so, when they didn’t get it right, I was like, ‘Well, that’s it,'” she said.

Henson continued, “And they had nothing else. ‘You’re all f—kin’ fired.'”

The actress recently spoke out about the lack of pay equity she’s faced during her decades-long career in Hollywood that drove her to consider quitting altogether.

She became emotional as she told Gayle King, “Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you.”

She continued, “I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear it and just keep like… Enough is enough! That’s why I have other things, I have my TPH brand, I have my mental wellness… because this industry, if you let it, it will steal your soul. I refuse to let that happen.”

The Color Purple is now playing in theaters.