Euphoria star Nika King says she’s unable to pay rent amid season 3 delays

Euphoria’s Nika King has opened up about the financial difficulties she’s faced amid the show’s season three delay.

King played Leslie Bennett, the mother of troubled Rue (Zendaya), on the first two seasons of HBO’s hit teen drama.

During a recent stand-up comedy show at Los Angeles’s Hollywood Improv Lab, King revealed that she’s been unable to pay rent for the past six months.

“Season three is coming out, I don’t f***ing know. Don’t ask me, I don’t know. I know, it’s one of those things. People are like, ‘We need season three’, and I’m like b****, I need season three. I haven’t paid my rent in six months,” the actor and comedian told the audience.

“And Zendaya’s over in Paris for fashion week, and I’m like, b**** come home! I need you. Momma needs you.

“Y’all laughing, and I’m serious. I haven’t booked nothing since Euphoria. This is some bulls***,” she quipped.

In the time since Euphoria released its second season in early 2022, King did have a small role playing Alya, the mother of Nevine (Chloe Colman), in Adam Driver’s 2023 sci-fi movie 65, although it’s unclear when she booked that job.

“I thought my career was on the rise after Euphoria. I thought I was good,” King said. “It don’t work that way. I called Taraji [P Henson] and she was like b**** get used to it.”

The Independent has contacted King’s representative for comment.

Last December, Henson sobbed over the pay disparity in Hollywood, revealing that she almost considered quitting acting because of it.

“I’m only human,” The Color Purple star told Gayle King in an interview series for SiriusXM. “Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired.”

Euphoria was scheduled to begin filming sometime in 2023, but was halted due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes. It has yet to begin filming as the script is still being written.

Euphoria star Colman Domingo recently explained the show’s delay, telling GQ: “[Creator Sam Levinson is] a person who writes and rewrites and writes and rewrites again, because I think he’s wrestling with what’s important.

“He’s responding immediately to what the ills of the world are. I know that the one thing I can tell you is that he’s very much interested in the existential question of who we are right now. Our souls. That’s what he wants to figure out with season three.”

Season three of Euphoria is scheduled to premiere in 2025.