Tracee Ellis Ross revealed that she was snubbed by Jay Leno’s team when she was starring on Girlfriends.

In an interview with Variety about her upcoming thriller Cold Copy, Ross said that the talent agent for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno sent a message to her publicist with a clear backhanded compliment. Ross told the story after saying that winning the Golden Globe for black-ish allowed her to have more doors opened to her.

“I had never been to the Emmys. I’d never been to the Golden Globes. I couldn’t get on a late night talk show,” she said. “I remember when I was on Girlfriends, Jay Leno’s talent person saying to my publicist, ‘We love Tracee. Call us when she gets a role that we care about.’ So that was my experience in the industry.”

“The industry was a lot more segregated at the time,” she continued. “So winning the Golden Globe, from an ego perspective, it’s like ‘Blah, blah, blah, really great.’ But winning is a marker for the industry. It changes something about how you are seen, particularly as a perosn of color in this industry, and how you are paid. That moment at the Golden Globes really shifted my career into a different place. I’ve always been the same person. But it changes some other things.”

In Cold Copy, Ross plays Diane Hager, a character described as “an esteemed yet cutthroat TV journalist” who becomes a mentor to an upstart (Bel Powley), with both characters falling down a rabbit hole of moral corruption. The film is set to debut at Tribeca this month.

Jay Leno

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