Mike Kelly [from The Atlantic] called me up and said he could pay me less money.
That room was not available, and the only other room had been booked for a Jewish bar mitzvah. I called the father and told him I needed the room and I would pay him to move the bar mitzvah to an adjoining room which was smaller.
I never took a dollar from Young Jeezy. No advance, nothing.
But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.
Now I am a writer who can command fairly good payments from magazines with large circulations, I very often refuse to write for them and still write sometimes for small magazines for nothing.
It's not that I don't want to, it's just that there's no money in it. By that I mean the way the video business works now, the artist and the record label send out a song to a bunch of different directors and say, 'What would you do with this?' Then everyone has to come up with an idea and bid on it. For me, it's like, 'Hey, you want me to do it? Then pay me. I'm not auditioning for you.'
I demand minimal for paid rehearsal and not always six weeks either.
I've been charging what I deserve. I believe I am worth every penny of it, and if filmmakers think so, too, they will pay me.
Believe me, when people say, 'We want to pay you X-million to do this movie,' I won't be the girl who hangs back saying, 'Oh, I really don't deserve it,' I'll be, 'Un-hunh, hand it right over.'
If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she'd get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don't mean she wouldn't pay the bank, but the children always came first.
