Taraji P. Henson has one of the best “Don’t You Even Think of Messing With Me” faces of all time, right?

One of the things that pisses me off about the success of Empire is that the media has treated the success like an oddity, a blip, a new and exotic bird that should be examined clinically rather than as a good primetime soap opera that appeals to a wide demographic. If Empire starred a primarily white cast, well… first of all, it wouldn’t be as big of a hit, but even if an all-white cast had even a fraction of Empire’s success, the cast members (and mostly the breakout star playing Cookie) would be covering every magazine and trade paper.

I feel for Taraji P. Henson especially – the success she’s had playing Cookie is the culmination of more than 15 years of hard work in Hollywood, and she’s still being shafted for media-attention because she’s seen as “riding the wave” of African-American women on TV. My point? Taraji needs to be getting more for what she brings to the table, whether it’s a pay raise or more media focus or whatever. But she’s not getting any of that. In Touch Weekly reports that Taraji asked for a significant pay raise for Empire’s second season and… she didn’t get it.

Payday just got less exciting for Empire star Taraji P. Henson. An insider exclusively tells In Touch that Taraji is angry that she didn’t get the raise she was expecting for season two of the hit Fox show.

“When she found out what her co-stars got, she threw a fit,” an insider exclusively reveals to In Touch. “She feels she should be compensated much more as the star of the show.”

The actress attempted to meet with producers to renegotiate, but they “flat-out said no,” the insider explains to In Touch. “She was livid.”

[From In Touch Weekly]

I believe it. I believe they probably did give her a raise but it wasn’t nearly as much as she wanted or, let’s face it, as much as she deserved. Hollywood has a terrible record with compensating women the same way men are compensating, unless you’re Charlize Theron (and even then, the producers’ first instinct was to pay Charlize significantly less than Chris Hemsworth). So even though Taraji is the breakout star of Empire, she’s still fighting for what’s rightfully hers.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fox/’Empire’.