Taraji P. Henson has no beef with Oprah: "What you’re not gonna do is pit two Black women together"

Fans of The Color Purple can rest assured that Taraji P. Henson and Oprah are not seeing red. “What you’re not gonna do is pit two Black women together—not on my watch,” Henson said of her rumored feud with the legendary daytime host and Color Purple producer in a recent interview with NBC’s Today.

It all started when Henson, who plays blues singer Shug Avery in the recent film, spoke out about the less than satisfactory conditions she and her co-stars experienced on 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. What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car?” Henson said in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for.” (In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Henson’s co-star Danielle Brooks said the cast didn’t receive proper dressing rooms or food either.)

Because Oprah is the biggest name associated with the film on the production side and after the emergence of a video that seemed to show Winfrey distancing herself from Henson at a photo shoot, speculation ran wild that the two were in some sort of feud as a result of the frustrating filming conditions. (Oprah later addressed the video and said it was just really cold that day.)

Henson is completely shutting this theory down with an earnest plea not to let it overshadow the message of the movie. “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, and that’s not fair to me, or anybody in the film,” she said. “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.”

“I see what’s going on, but there’s nothing spin there,” Henson added. “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.”

“You know, she called me, she called me personally. Not my team, not my people—me. And asked me, ‘Taraji, if there’s anything you need, you let me know,’” Henson said of Winfrey’s active role in the production. “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.”

Both women also posted their admiration for each other on Instagram last month, likely in light of the rumors. “Ms. OPRAH has been nothing less than a steady and solid beacon of light to ALL OF THE CAST of The Color Purple!!!” Henson wrote. “Thank You Ms. @OPRAH For ALL That You Do.” “Taraji, the stage is now yours and I already see the standing ovations for you,” Winfrey said in a subsequent caption. “I’m fiercely welcoming Taraji to the Purple sisterhood and I cannot wait for you to meet her version of Shug.”