US actress, singer and rapper, Queen Latifah, has been much loved since her debut album ‘All Hail the Queen’ which was released in 1989.
Often described as one of the best female rappers and ‘Hip Hop’s first lady,’ she paved the way for a new wave of women to join the rap scene, which at the time was largely dominated by men.
Away from music, she’s also known for her movie and TV appearances – she first graced our screens as Khadijah James on the 1993 sitcom ‘Living Single’.
The Hollywood actress and rapper has since been in a range of movies, from light hearted comedic films such as ‘Girls Trip’ and dramas including her lead role on CBS’ revival of ‘The Equalizer’.
However, the now 53-year-old, has a surprising clause in all of her contracts, that not many people know about.
Although her talent in a variety of roles is recognised worldwide, it could be said that in the early years of her career, her characters seemed to have one thing in common – they all died.
A lot of her characters deaths unfolded in quite gruesome ways, with some people arguing that the actress became known for being the one that always died.
Her character Cleo Sims in 1996’s ‘Set if Off’ died after being shot by police following a car chase.
In the 1998 sci-fi movie ‘Sphere’ her character again met an unfortunate end after being stung to death by a swarm of jellyfish.
In 1999, Queen Latifah played the role of Thelma in ‘The Bone Collector’ – a movie that follows a serial killer who abducts his victims.
Sadly, her character was killed off during the climax of the film.
In an appearance on the Late Late show with James Corden in 2017, the actress revealed that enough was enough and she got a ‘no-death’ clause put into her contracts.
She said ‘The movies that I first started doing, I always had these death scenes, I got killed in Set It Off, I got killed in Sphere – apparently I die too well.
‘I’m like hold on, wait a minute, if I die in these movies, I can’t be in the sequel. Got my agent on the phone and said we need to put a no die clause in future movies.’
The actress is next set to return as star Robin McCall in The Equalizer series four, however it’s yet to have a release date.
Her fans love the idea and every now and then it resurfaces on the internet to shock people.
One X (formerly known as Twitter) user wrote ‘Oh that’s f****** DOPE ! If a movie she’s in ends up becoming a franchise, she would need to come back EVERYTIME ! That’s smart asf’.
Others said ‘Wait! This is genius tho. Can always make a comeback’ and ‘I’ve always respected Queen Latifah, and that’s very smart of her’.
Queen Latifah is not the first person in the acting world to introduce an unusual clause that determines he fate of characters.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson limits how ‘badly’ he can be beaten up on screen, meaning he never loses a fight.
Tom Cruise also allegedly has a surprising clause in his contracts that states his ‘likeness’ cannot be used to create any merchandise.
This means that anything with the actor’s face on, including figurines, toys and games would be very difficult to come by.
