Comic Leslie Jones claims she had to fight for a wage increase while acting in Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot.
In 2016, the 56-year-old starred alongside Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon in the all-female reboot of 1984’s Ghostbusters.
The third film in the franchise was written by Katie Dippold and Feig. However, it was considered a box office bomb as it lost a staggering $70 million (£57.1million) during its theatrical run.
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In the film, the American actor portrayed Patricia ‘Patty’ Tolan. However, Jones believed she was made to feel 'ashamed' of her character as she was an MTA worker.
In an excerpt of her new memoir, published via Rolling Stone, she said that during the movie’s press tour, a journalist rounded on her and stated: “I don’t like this movie, and you’ve got five minutes to prove to me that it is worth watching."
Jones said: “It wasn’t just racism and misogyny, either. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was playing an MTA worker, as though that was something I should be ashamed of.
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“I’d tried to fight back — I was a comic — I was used to someone heckling me, so for every piece of bullshit on Twitter I had a reply."
Elsewhere, Jones admitted that she had to fight for her pay whilst working on the reboot.
She said: “It was made clear to me at times during the process that I was lucky to even be on that movie, but honestly, I was thinking, ‘I don’t have to be in this m*********.
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“Especially as I got paid way less than Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. No knock on them, but my first offer was to do that movie for $67,000.”
The Coming 2 America star continued to say that she had to ‘fight’ to get more money and was eventually given a salary of $150,000.
It's also estimated that McCarthy was paid earned $14 million (£11.4 million) for her role as Abby Yates in the film, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
“The message was clear,” she continued. “‘This is gonna blow you up—after this, you’re made for life,’ all that kind of s***, as though I hadn’t had decades of a successful career already.
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“And in the end, all it made for me was heartache and one big-ass controversy.”
Elsewhere in the excerpt, Jones revealed that the backlash caused by the 2016 film led her to delete her X account (formerly Twitter) for 24 hours.
“I can’t believe anyone would do this s*** to someone, anyone, for working,” she wrote, in regards to the ‘racial slurs and worse’ that were being directed at her.
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“This is awful. I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that?”
She continued to question why people were being ‘so evil’ on social media, and questioned trolls who sit behind their keyboards and write ‘I want to kill you’.
Jones’ memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones, is available to purchase now
UNILAD has contacted Sony Pictures for a comment.
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Entertainment
Ella Scott