Lee Daniels can breathe a sigh of relief. The Fox soap opera musical Empire snapped its losing streak on Wednesday after 7 successive weeks of low ratings.
According to TVbytheNumbers, Empire’s episode 8 drew 100,000 more viewers than last week’s episode.
Daniels can thank actress Vivica A. Fox for the ratings resurgence.
Vivica made her debut on Wednesday’s episode as Cookie Lyon’s older sister, Candace, who informs Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) that their sister Carol (Tasha Smith) has gone missing.
Cookie and Candace are determined to go to Philadelphia to find Carol, who dumped her children at Candace’s mansion.
In an interview with Thehollywoodreporter.com, Vivica said Daniels called her after watching her on Celebrity Apprentice.
“Baby, I’m going to figure out some kind of way to get you on Empire,” she quoted Daniels.
“[W]when I got the call from him saying that he wanted me to be on Empire, I was like, “Yes.”
Vivica described her character on the show.
My character Candace is totally different than Cookie. She’s the bougie stuck-up sister that lives a totally different life. She’s married to a wealthy man, she’s doing well, she has children and she’s in the suburbs and very happy so we’re very different. … We’ve definitely lost our sisterly connection but the crisis with Carol happens and we have to go looking for Carol and that’s why we have to deal with each other. In us looking for Carol, and caring about Carol because she’s our sister, that’s why we have to deal with each other and boy, do we butt heads.”
Did you watch Empire last night?
