Garcelle Beauvais opened about the inequality she has faced as a Black woman in Hollywood.
During a virtual interview for Variety: After-Show, the “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star revealed she has only recently begun to speak up for equal pay after over two decades in the entertainment industry.
“It’s all about being treated equally,” the former model, 53, began. “I want to be promoted the same way. I want to be compensated the same way.”
“I’ve been in Hollywood over 20 something years, which is a feat in itself to continue working and I’m so grateful,” she continued. “But I do feel that so many times, my white counterparts get paid 1000% more than I do. I know it for sure, and that really sucks.”
“We’re not valued as we should be. I just feel like it’s been happening for a long time, and now I’m not putting up with it. You don’t see my value you don’t get to have me in your project. Simple as that,” she added.
When asked if her “RHOBH” paycheck is on par with her fellow first-time Housewife, Sutton Stracke, Garcelle laughed and said, “I don’t know. But Sutton doesn’t need the money, that’s the thing!”
Garcelle’s storied career includes television roles on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “The Jamie Foxx Show,” “NYPD Blue,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and “Arrested Development.”
In film, she can be seen in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Flight,” “Wild Wild West” and the upcoming sequel to “Coming to America” called “Coming 2 America.”
“It was surreal,” Garcelle said of filming the Eddie Murphy comedy, which wrapped before the coronavirus quarantine. “If somebody had said to us when we were shooting the original 30 years ago, like, ’30 years from now you’re gonna come back and shoot the sequel’ we would have said ‘Uh what are you smoking.”
“It’s unbelievable,” she continued. “We were all so giddy to be there because it was a treat.”
“And visually it’s going to be stunning, so I really hope we are in theaters by then when it comes out.”
