Gabrielle Union Describes 'Hardest Part' Of Her Career

Gabrielle Union has been through her fair share of frustration and disappointment over her twenty-plus year career in entertainment, but she reveals that a recent incident proved to be the “hardest part” of her journey as a Black woman in Hollywood.

Speaking on a panel during the American Black Film Festival, Union revealed that her firing from and subsequent lawsuit against America’s Got Talent shook her more than other struggles she’s endured.

“Probably the ‘AGT’ of it all was so surprising and so heartbreaking and so frustrating and so unnecessary,” Union said, according to USA Today. “That would be probably the hardest part [of my time in the industry].”

The actress said the environment on American’s Got Talent resulted in her “feeling like such a public flogging and just standing in my truth and standing on the side of employee rights and knowing there’s a better way of doing business.”

“But that whole process was really brutal and knowing that I brought my team into that, it just sucked,” she continued. In other interviews, she’s talked about feeling betrayed by her former friend and AGT host Terry Crews for not standing up for her.

The Think Like A Man star and producer said she’s working towards solutions so that others don’t ever feel as isolated as she once did. Union says she hopes her production company will represent a part of the industry “where I feel like the voices of marginalized folks have not been traditionally centered or amplified.”