Taraji Henson is an American film and television actress. She is best known as Cookie Lyon on the Fox drama series Empire for which she won a Critics' Choice Award, a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award. In 2008 she received an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Henson is also a singer and provided the vocals for the Three 6 Mafia track "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". The song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2006.Henson is a graduate of Howard University where she studied drama, a supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and is the single mother of a grown son.
Voted one of "The 10 Sexiest Women of 2001" by the readers of Black Men Magazine.
Has a son named Marcell Johnson (born in May 10, 1994).
She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and attended Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Henson first attended North Carolina Agric & Tech, where she attempted to study electrical engineering. She failed precalculus, so she transferred to Howard University. To pay for Howard, she worked two jobs: in the morning, as a secretary at the Pentagon; at night, as a singing and dancing waitress on a dinner cruise ship. She graduated from Howard University in 1995.
The father of her only son died unexpectedly in 1997.
Contrary to previously published accounts, Taraji is a relative, not a descendant, of North Pole explorer Matthew Henson.
Her first and middle names are Swahili for "hope" and "love," respectively.
She is an only child.
Living in Glendale, California with her son, Marcel.
(March 2015) Claimed in an interview with Uptown magazine that her son Marcel Johnson was racially profiled when his car was stopped by police in Glendale and that police searched his car illegally. However, the dashcam video of the incident revealed that Johnson drove through a lighted crosswalk as a person walked across and that he was in possession of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia, which a police officer found after smelling marijuana smoke in the car and Johnson consented and allowed the officer to search his car. After the video surfaced, she apologized via Instagram for her statements. She was apparently misinformed about the incident by her son.
Friends with Mary J. Blige , Anthony Anderson , Common , and Taye Diggs.
You always have time to turn it around.
I feel like we all have our skeletons.
A lot of times characters are combinations of people I come across in,life. I people-watch a lot.
I just like when I work with people that are professional and good.
I love children.
I prefer doing feature films.
I love New York. Love it.
The best thing about being in New York is the people, and you get to,walk everywhere.
Oftentimes, when you have a huge studio film and you have big names,attached, they like to keep attaching big names.
Most men are fragile.
Have we seen enough representation of African-Americans in stories? No.
