It’s been months since journalist and show host Joy-Ann Reid was fired from MSNBC, which was recently renamed to MS NOW. Still, she’s speaking out about her time on the network and the hardships she had to face, especially as one of the few Black news anchors on air. But a shocking reveal about how much Reid was allegedly paid for her hit show could stir some trouble.

Reid was the keynote speaker during the recent Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival’s C-Suite Soirée. According to PEOPLE, she spoke about the plight of being a Black woman at the top of the journalism industry. “The curse of competency means you’re the best person at what you do,” she began.

“You know more than everyone else because you’ve had to do more work and more research to get where you are, and so therefore you’re the one everybody calls,” Reid said. Her show “The ReidOut” was canceled by the network after nearly five years on air. At the time, MSNBC claimed it was due to a significant drop in viewership after the 2024 election, we previously reported.

“I worked in a business where I was paid a tenth of the salary of people who did literally my same job, the whole time I worked there,” she continued. “And we knew that any man that was doing what I was doing was going to make more than me. And that they were going to be able to negotiate higher salaries, even at lower ratings.”

A Newsweek article reported that Reid was paid $3 million each year for hosting her show. But things changed in 2024 when she and other anchors were given pay cuts to save money for the network. Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on the network, on the other hand, raked in nearly $30 million for her show, the Telegraph reported.

Although Maddow’s show has been on air for 17 seasons to her five years, Reid remained one of the most high-profile women from the network, especially in light of Trump’s attacks to the Press and to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). Only six percent of journalists in America are Black, according to PEW Research. And just as it’s a well-known fact that Black women are paid less than their white and/or male peers, Reid’s case emphasizes a clear problem.

“They get the sort of presumption of brilliance– the Elon Musk presumption– where people are like ‘You look like a genius, you must be a genius.’ But they’re not,” she said of white men. “They work less hours and make more than us, get bigger raises, more opportunities and more grace. This is the world we live in.”

This isn’t the first time Reid has called out the Tesla and X CEO. In fact, her sharp criticism of Musk and President Donald Trump played a role in the cancellation of her show, she previously stated.

After being fired, the journalist said she remains thankful. “I am not sorry I stood up for those things, because those things are of God,” she said in a tearful video to fans. “But in the end, where I really land, and where I’ve landed on today is just gratitude.”