Taraji P. Henson Profile

Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress best known for her roles on several television shows before breaking out in Baby Boy, as a prostitute in Hustle & Flow, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance.

Taraji P. Henson Education

In 1988, Henson graduated from Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland. She attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, intending to major in electrical engineering, before transferring to Howard University to major in drama. To pay for college, she worked mornings as a secretary at The Pentagon and evenings as a singing-dancing waitress on the Spirit of Washington, a dinner cruise ship.

Taraji P. Henson Age

Henson is 51 years old as of 2021. She was born Taraji Penda Henson on 11 September 1970 in Washington, D.C., United States. She celebrates her birthday on 11 September.

Taraji P. Henson Height

Henson stands at a height of 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m).

Taraji P. Henson Family

Henson was born to Bernice (née Gordon), a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, and Boris Lawrence Henson, a janitor and metal fabricator. Shawn and April are her two younger siblings. Her maternal grandmother, Patsy Ballard, who accompanied her to the Academy Awards the year she was nominated, has been a source of inspiration for her. Her first and middle names are Swahili: Taraji (“hope”) and Penda (“love”) (“love”). Her matrilineal lineage can be traced back to the Masa people of Cameroon, according to mitochondrial DNA analysis.

Taraji P. Henson Husband

Henson gave birth to her son Marcell in 1994. In 2003, Henson’s high school sweetheart, William LaMarr Johnson, was murdered. Henson married former NFL player Kelvin Hayden on May 13, 2018, but the couple divorced on October 19, 2020, during an episode of The Breakfast Club.

Quick Facts About Taraji P. Henson

Taraji P. Henson Net Worth

Henson has an estimated net worth of $25 Million.

Taraji P. Henson Hair Products

Taraji is the result of Henson’s decades-long passion for hair, cultivated through her own styling experiences and the kind of trial and error that we all go through when learning how to care for our own hair. The 18-piece collection is color-coded into four categories: teal for cleansing and care, red for repair, purple for treatment stylers, and yellow for scalp-care products.

Because of her own experiences wearing weaves over the years, Henson tells Allure that scalp care is at the heart of TPH. Her hero product, Master Cleanse, was inspired by a homemade concoction Henson made specifically to refresh her scalp when she wears weaves.

The collection was not designed with a specific hair type in mind, nor was it designed exclusively for people who wear weaves. TPH hair, according to Henson, was created for every texture, whether silky and stick-straight or fluffy, with gravity-defying z-shaped zigzag strands. So we put the collection through its paces on five different types of hair.

Taraji P. Henson Hair Care

Beautiful hair is healthy hair. And, because our kinks, coils, and curls require a little more TLC, wash day is often a sacred act of self-care for Black women. In our Wash Day Diaries series, we ask influential women to break down their routines so you can copy their tips, tricks, and products that work for your texture and style. While hair care has evolved into a form of self-care for many, particularly during the pandemic, the two haven’t always gone hand in hand for Black women.

Historically, we’ve put a lot of pressure on our hair to look and act a certain way. Nobody understands this better than Taraji P. Henson. However, due to the shortcomings of mainstream hair brands, Henson discovered that she didn’t always have the tools she needed to care for her curls. As a result, she created her own 18-piece hairline called TPH by Taraji.

Taraji P. Henson Empire

Henson was hired by Fox to star in Empire, a musical drama set in the hip-hop recording industry, in February 2014, several months after her last Person of Interest episode, where she plays Cookie Lyon opposite former Hustle & Flow costar, Terrence Howard. Fox ordered the pilot in May 2014, and the series premiered on January 7, 2015, to positive critical and commercial acclaim.

Henson received widespread recognition and critical acclaim for the role. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in July 2015, and the show’s pilot was submitted for Emmy voting.

In January 2016, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in Empire, becoming only the third African-American actress to do so after Gail Fisher (1972) and Regina Taylor (1974). (1992). She was named 2015 Entertainer of the Year at the 46th NAACP Image Awards for her roles in Empire and No Good Deed.

Loretha “Cookie” Lyon (née Holloway) is the main female protagonist of Empire, a FOX series. She is Lucious Lyon’s wife. Andre Lyon, Jamal Lyon, and Hakeem Lyon’s mother; Jeff Kingsley’s stepmother; and Bella Lyon, Prince Lyon, and Walker Lyon’s grandmother.

She is the co-founder of Empire Entertainment and returned to take her half of the company after being released from prison after serving a 17-year sentence. She later left Empire to start her own label, Lyon Dynasty, with her son Hakeem. She returned to Empire after it acquired Lyon Dynasty, and she is now the co-CEO as well as the head of A&R for Empire.

Taraji P. Henson TV Shows

• 2021 – Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered
• 2021 – Legendary
• 2021 – Muppets Haunted Mansion
• 2021 – Annie Live!
• 2019 – Tuca & Bertie
• 2017 – The Simpsons
• 2017 – Carpool Karaoke: The Series
• 2016–17 – Taraji’s White Hot Holidays
• 2016 – Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade
• 2015, 2018 – Lip Sync Battle
• 2015–20 – Empire
• 2015 – FIFA Women’s World Cup
• 2015 – Saturday Night Live
• 2015 – Live! with Kelly and Michael
• 2015 – Taraji and Terrence’s White Hot Holidays
• 2014 – Season Of Love
• 2011–13, 2015 – Person of Interest
• 2011 – Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story
• 2010 – The Cleveland Show

Taraji P. Henson Movies

• 2022 – Minions: The Rise of Gru
• 2021 – Mary J. Blige’s My Life
• 2020 – Coffee & Kareem
• 2019 – What Men Want
• 2019 – The Best of Enemies
• 2018 – Proud Mary
• 2018 – Acrimony
• 2018 – Ralph Breaks the Internet
• 2016 – Term Life – Samantha
• 2016 – Hidden Figures
• 2014 – Think Like a Man Too
• 2014 – No Good Deed
• 2014 – Top Five
• 2013 – Madly Madagascar
• 2012 – Think Like a Man
• 2011 – The Good Doctor
• 2011 – Larry Crowne
• 2011 – Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain
• 2011 – From the Rough
• 2010 – Date Night
• 2010 – The Karate Kid
• 2010 – Peep World
• 2010 – Once Fallen
• 2009 – Not Easily Broken