(Photo Credit: PR Photos)
Shonda Rhimes was recently honored at Elle magazine’s 25th annual Women In Hollywood celebration where she made a surprising announcement during her acceptance speech.
The “Grey’s Anatomy” creator revealed that she’s the highest paid showrunner in television after inking a lucrative deal with Netflix.
“I am the highest-paid showrunner in television,” the 48-year-old told the audience.
It was previously announced that Ryan Murphy, who was in the audience, signed a five-year Netflix deal worth as much as $300 million, The YBF reports. Rhimes dropped the bomb about her #BlackGirlMagic to point out the differences between men and women.
“Over the course of the seasons, Ellen and I went from believing that we were employees of a network to understand that we were the network. In a world in which women of all colors are constantly forced to battle with men for equity and inclusion, we have the good fortune to work in an environment that we had nurtured and built with enough of our sweat and tears over enough years that we no longer needed to battle men to get to the top of a mountain,” Shonda said. “We just built our own mountains, and then we realized that all we had to do was equalize and include one another.”
Continuing, she added:
“The other day I came to this conclusion that men brag and women hide. Even when they don’t deserve to brag, men brag — [Donald] Trump, [Brett] Kavanaugh — and when men do deserve to brag, they are good at it. They do it so well. Men brag about everything, even things that aren’t things. A little while ago in an inspiring article, Ellen told the world she was the highest-paid women in dramatic television. She did not hide. She bragged. She said she was powerful and she said deserved it, and there was some blowback. There should not have been. I have seen a thousand articles like that from men, but she’s a woman and she shouldn’t say things like that.”
“When I made a deal with Netflix, I let them report my salary wrong in the press, and then I did as few interviews as possible and I put my head down and worked. In other words, I hid. I’m getting this award for inspiring other women — how can I inspire anyone if I’m hiding?”
“My point is that we need to set an example because I am awesome and we are awesome, which is another way of saying we have power. We are powerful women and when we say we have power, what we are really saying is that we deserve to have power. We deserve whatever good thing it is that we are getting. Demanding what you deserve can feel like a radical act.”
