Debra Messing calls out E!'s hypocrisy over gender equality straight to E!'s face

Debra Messing definitively proved that the women of Hollywood are absolutely done being silent.

The Will and Grace star wasn't afraid to let things get necessarily awkward when she kicked off her E! Golden Globes red carpet interview by calling out the network for its own hypocrisy with gender equality.

It began when host Giuliana Rancic asked her about the hottest topic of the night and past several months in: the industry -- and world's -- reckoning with sexual harassment and assault. The two quickly got into the Time's Up movement -- a legal defense fund and group that hundreds of stars joined.

Then things got personal.

"Time is up," Messing began. "We want diversity, we want intersectional gender parity, equal pay. I was so shocked to hear that E! Doesn't believing in paying their female co-hosts the same as their male co-hosts. I mean I miss Catt Sadler. So we stand with her. That's something that can change tomorrow, you know."

Only a couple weeks ago, E! Host Catt Sadler ended her 12-year reign at the network because of the enormous disparity between her and her male counterparts' salary.

Messing wasn't the only one to stand with Sadler. Amy Schumer added her voice to the #imwithcattsad online movement, in an Instagram posted a few hours before the red carpet began. Eva Longoria also called out the hashtag briefly at the end of her own E! interview.

"Absolutely," Rancic responded to Messing, showing her own unflinching willingness to speak out. "There are a lot of big great voices here tonight who can speak on behalf of people -- not just around the country, but around the world -- who don't have those voices."

The moment felt both surreal and long overdo. Because when women on the red carpet are standing together to speak out against the very network paying to broadcast their words out across the world -- well, you know the reckoning has only just begun.

"We want people to start having this conversation that women are just as valuable as men," Messing said, concluding one hell of a strong start to an evening of unabashed sister solidarity.