Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress. She studied acting at Howard University. Taraji began her career in guest roles on several television shows. Making her breakthrough in Baby Boy (2001) a comedy-drama film where she portrayed Yvette, alongside singer Tyrese Gibson.
Her first and middle names are of Swahili origin: Taraji ”hope” and Penda ”love”. She has said that North Pole explorer Matthew Henson was ”the brother of (her) great-great-grandfather. Henson is a Christian and considers acting to be a spiritual experience.
She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the movie she played as a single mother of a disabled child in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). In 2010 she appeared in the action comedy Date Night and the drama The Karate Kid. In 2016 she starred as mathematician Katherine Johnson in the critically acclaimed drama Hidden Figures.
Moreover, Henson has also had an extensive television career starring in the Lifetime television film: Taken From Me, The Tiffany Rubin Story (2011) which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2015-2020, she starred as Cookie Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire, for which she became the first African-American woman to win the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.
Additionally, she has won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Time named Henson one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Besides that year, she released a New York Times best-selling autobiography titled Around the Way Girl.
Henson acted in two of Tyler Perry Films. The Family That Preys in 2008 and I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009). In 2010 she appeared in the remake of The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Though reviews were Lackluster, the film was a commercial success. In Jan 2018, she starred in Sony Screen Gem’s thriller-drama film Proud Mary. She starred in the Tyler perry film Acrimony then later voiced the character Yesss in Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet, a sequal to the activist Ann Atwater.
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Taraji graduated from Oxon Hill School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in 1988. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where she intended to study electrical engineering before transferring to Howard University to study drama. To pay for college, she worked mornings as a secretary at The Pentagon and evenings as a singing-dancing waitress on a dinner-cruise ship, the Spirit of Washington.
Henson received her Screen Actor Guild (SAG) membership card in the early 1990s for doing three roles as a background performer. In 2005, She was in the independent film Hustle & Flow as Shug, the love interest of Terrence Howard, who portrayed the male lead, Djay. She made her singing debut in the film which was nominated for two Academy Awards and won one. In 2008, she appeared with Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where she played Queenie, Benjamin’s mother, and for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Penda is also slated to star in and produce The Emmett Till Story, a film about Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black Chicago teen who was abducted, tortured, murdered, and dumped in a river by two white men in rural Mississippi in 1955. Henson will play Till’s mother, Mammie. In December 2020, Taraji began hosting the talk show Peace of Mind with Taraji on Facebook Watch.
Taraji Henson Age
Penda was born in september 11, 1970. She is 53 years old as of 2023.
Taraji Henson Parents
Penda was born in Southeast Washington D.C. She is the daughter of Bernice, (a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop) and Boris Lawrence Henson, (a janitor and metal fabricator). Penda also spoken of the influence of her maternal grandmother, Patsy Ballard who accompanied her at the Academy Awards the year she was nominated.
Taraji Henson Son
Henson gave birth to her son Marcell in the year 1994. Marcel’s father, Hensons’s high-school sweetheart William LaMarr Johnson, was murdered in 2003. In 2014, Henson said that her son had been racially profiled by police. His car had been illegally searched during a traffic stop in Glendale, California. A video obtained by the Los Angeles Times showed Marcel had driven through a lighted crosswalk while a pedestrian was crossing, given verbal consent to search his vehicle, and admitted to smoking marijuana 2 hours before driving. Hashish oil and marijuana were found inside Marcel’s car. Henson said in an Instagram message, ” I would like to publicly apologize to the officer and the Glendale Police Department. A mother’s job is not easy, and neither is a police officer’s.”
Taraji Henson Married?
Henson announced she called off her wedding and split with her fiancé of two years, Kelvin Hayden. This major life decision came right after she went on a 50th-birthday girls’ trip to Mexico.
Taraji Henson Height
Penda has an average height of a lady as 5 feet 4 inches
Taraji Henson’s Net Worth
Penda has accumulated a net worth of $25 million, according to celebrity net worth as of 2023. She has been able to put her earnings to work. Adding real estate and entrepreneurship to her portfolio.