When the clock struck 5 p.m. Tuesday, negotiations between Melissa Harris-Perry and MSNBC—the cable network that used to air her eponymous show—seemed to come to a screeching halt.
Harris-Perry took to Twitter to tweet as much and then went on to open up in a defiant and zero-f—ks-given way about how her show was treated by executives who, she says, were inconsiderate and really didn't care all that much about diversity.
She apologized to former MSNBC hosts of color for her "earlier silence" when they were let go and about the culture at the network, which seemed to disregard talent of color, despite its reputation as left-leaning and liberal.
Harris-Perry also called out MSNBC executives for allegedly leaking that internal email she sent to MSNBC brass this weekend, expressing disappointment over how her show was hijacked and left for dead, in favor of specials that covered the presidential campaign. She didn't like the way it was handled, and she felt out of the loop and disrespected.
She even revealed that she said, "No, thank you" to a nondisclosure agreement MSNBC offered her. Nope, you can't pay female hosts less and then pay them to shut up.
She praised her team and then brought receipts in the form of graphs showing how diverse her show was in terms of race and gender. Other Sunday news shows paled in comparison, with data showing that an overwhelming percentage of their guests were white men.
And then the pièce de résistance: She put up a GIF of Angela Bassett's epic scene in Waiting to Exhale when she's walking away from her ex-husband's car, which she just lit on fire (with all of his expensive clothes and shoes in it).
Bassett chucked that cigarette out of her hand, and Harris-Perry is chucking MSNBC out of her hair. Go on, sister.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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