Mary J. Blige's Salary on 'Power Book II: Ghost' — It's Up There With the Biggest on TV, Ever

Immensely talented actor Taraji P. Henson made headlines in January 2024 for calling out the pay disparity for Black women in Hollywood.

In fact, her despair over the situation even led her to consider quitting acting following her role in The Color Purple.

Later that month, Mary J. Blige made news after rapper 50 Cent indicated that he was hoping to leverage Mary's salary from his Starz show Power Book II: Ghost to woo Taraji to a high-paying project.

According to Express, Mary is making big bank for starring as Monet Tejada in the Starz spinoff series, with her pay per episode being as much as $400,000.

This means that the singer makes one of the largest salaries among women on TV, per Vibe.

Meanwhile, when Taraji played Cookie on Empire, she reportedly earned around $175,000 per episode. She also has claimed to have earned just $150,000 to star in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — while Brad Pitt walked away with $10 million.

In an effort to level out the playing field, Power co-creator 50 Cent appealed directly to Taraji, writing on Instagram, "Someone called me today thinking I was bulls----ing about working with @tarajiphenson till I told them what I made STARZ pay @therealmaryjblige to be on GHOST. I ain’t out here f---ing around."

Fans praised the rapper and TV executive for his post, with one commenting, "You really show up for our queens, we love you for that. God bless you not only for who you are but what you do, respect legend."

"Thanks for always being an amazing person to BLACK actors and actresses," someone else said.

As many fans may have guessed, Sofía Vergara is among the highest-paid women on TV in history, having earned $500,000 per episode of Modern Family in its heyday, per Forbes.

And then there's the actresses from Friends — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow.

They earned an astonishing $1 million per episode towards the end of iconic show's run, a figure that continues to amaze even 20 years after the final season ended.

Other notable high-earners from TV shows past are Kaley Cuoco for The Big Bang Theory and Ellen Pompeo for Grey's Anatomy.

The only Black actress who previously earned even close to as much as her peers seems to be Kerry Washington for her role as Olivia Pope in Scandal. Celebrity Net Worth reports that her salary per episode was $250,000.

Angela Bassett also reportedly banked $450,000 per episode of the show 9-1-1, per Vanity Fair.

Meanwhile, at time of writing, neither Mary nor Taraji had publicly commented on 50 Cent's post. But here's hoping we just get to see both of these amazing talents in many projects in the future — and that they are handsomely compensated for sharing their gifts with the world.