Oprah Sets the Record Straight on Rumors of Feud With Taraji P. Henson: “There Is No Thing”

Is there beef between Oprah Winfrey and Taraji P. Henson? According to Winfrey, the answer is hell no. On the Golden Globes red carpet, the Color Purple producer addressed rumors of tension between her and one of the film’s stars, telling best friend Gayle King that “there is no thing” between Winfrey and Henson. 

King asked Winfrey the question on many people’s minds after a video showing the megastar and Henson apparently acting frostily toward each other at a press event went viral on TikTok. “Three people have stopped me today, Oprah, and said, ‘What is the deal with Oprah and Taraji?’” said King. “What do you want to share with the class? People think you’re mad, she’s mad—I know that that’s not true.”

Flanked by Color Purple stars and Golden Globe nominees Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks, Winfrey said that if things appeared chilly between the two, that’s because they were actually cold. 

“Well, first of all, the thing that is so upsetting to me is that something went viral where they’re analyzing us on top of the [Empire State Building]. We were cold! It was cold,” exclaimed Winfrey. Brooks, who plays Sofia in the movie-musical adaptation, jumped in to add that everyone was “tired” at that event. “That was the fourth thing we had done that day,” agreed Winfrey. 

Beyond viral TikToks analyzing body language, rumors of tension have swirled in part because Henson has been exceedingly outspoken about the struggles she’s faced as a Black woman in Hollywood, discussing pay disparity and subpar on-set working conditions during her press tour for the film. In an interview with The New York Times, Henson called out the production of The Color Purple for asking the stars to drive themselves to the set.

“They gave us rental cars, and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they robbing people,” said Henson, who stars in the film as jazz singer Shug Avery. “What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car? So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon. They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’”

She continued: “Well, do it for everybody! It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for. I was on the set of Empire fighting for trailers that wasn’t infested with bugs.”

Winfrey responded to Henson’s claims about the rental car situation, telling King that she addressed the problem. “I heard that Taraji was upset because she’d been asked to do a rental car. I personally called Toby Emmerich, who was at the time the head of Warner Bros., and he said, ‘Well, that means we have to do cars for everybody,’” said Winfrey. “Then I said, ‘Then we do cars for everybody. And if it’s necessary, I will pay for the cars myself.’ He goes, ‘Well, we don’t want you to do that.’” Throughout Winfrey’s explanation, Brooks and Barrino affirmed her version of events, with both saying that they didn’t mind driving themselves to work. 

Henson isn’t the only star who’s noted subpar conditions on the film’s set, though. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brooks said there was no food or dressing rooms for the cast at the film’s first rehearsal, something that Henson apparently asked Winfrey to remedy. “Trailers were another thing, food was another thing,” the producer said on the red carpet. Brooks chimed in to say that “everything got handled,” which Winfrey then repeated.