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Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan Says She Gets Paid Less Than Her White Co-Stars
4 June 2020, 12:33
Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan says she gets paid less than her white co-stars.
Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan has hit out at the Netflix show for paying her less than her white co-stars.
The 28-year-old, who has played Toni Topez on the show since season 2, took to Twitter to blast show bosses and also took aim at the writers for making black characters ‘sidekicks’ to ‘white leads’.
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She said: “Tired of how black people are portrayed in Media, tired of us being portrayed as thugs, dangerous or angry scary people.
“Tired of us also being used as sidekick non dimensional characters to our white leads.
“Or only used in the ads for diversity but not actually in the show.”
Vanessa added that her character, Toni, was being ‘used as the token biracial bisexual’ on the series.
She also made it clear she has no bad feelings toward her co-stars and urged her followers not to ‘attack’ them.
Her post read: “My role on Riverdale has nothing to do with my fellow castmates/friends.
“They don’t write the show. So no need to attack them, they don’t call the shots & I know they have my back. [heart emoji]”
Lili Reinhart, who plays Betty Cooper on the show, replied to the tweet, saying: “We love you, V. And we support you 10000%.”
Vanessa followed up her tweets with a powerful message and vowed to make it her ‘purpose to fight’ for black people in the industry.
She said: “To my black fans, I have now made it my purpose to fight for us. To the six year old me who had no role model that looked like me on TV. This is for you. We aren’t your token black non dimensional characters. This is being black in Hollywood. I will fight for YOU.”
She added: “And I will no longer take roles that don’t properly represent us. PERIOD.”
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