Taraji P. Henson Shares How Being a Parent to Son Marcell Impacts Her Career: 'I'm a Mother First'

Yahoo

18-06-2025

For Taraji P. Henson, motherhood is always at the forefront of everything she does.
On Monday, June 16, the Straw actress, 54, sat down with her co-stars, Sherri Shepherd and Teyana Taylor, to discuss their roles in Tyler Perry's new thriller Straw. During the conversation, the leading ladies opened up about the importance of Black women in entertainment and how motherhood impacts their career.
'I'm a mom first like before you see me on camera, before I hit my mark, i'm a mother first, so that comes with everything I do,' she began.
'There were roles that I didn't take because I'm a mom, certain scenes I wouldn't shoot because I'm a mom,' she said, before jokingly adding, 'It's changed now 'cause he grown.'
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Henson, who got pregnant with her son during her junior year at Howard University, added that being a mom at the start of her career helped her create separation between her job and private life.
'When I started my career, Marcell was really young, so I couldn't come home and talk about Hollywood 'cause he had to eat, we had homework and so that's what trained me to turn that switch on and off," she said. "Like as soon as I got home, Hollywood was back there."
Henson moved to L.A. when her son was young to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. In her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony speech, Henson recalled moving with $700 when Marcell was only 1 year old.
"I'm a mom. I have a son. When I set out on this journey, I said, 'I'll never give up because if I give up what am I teaching my son,' " she said.
"I just made a promise to him, and I just said, 'I'm never gonna give up. Things are gonna be hard," she added. "He don't even remember the hard days, he remembers the house with the pool, but I just made a promise to him and when you love that deep and you make promises, you have to keep them."
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Over the years, Marcell has attended events with his famous mother. In 2014, he accompanied Henson to a screening of From The Rough in Hollywood, and joined his mom at the 2015 Emmy Awards.
During an installment of The Jess Cagle Interview, Henson opened up about the fear she carries as a mother. "He has a really good heart," she said of her son. "It's just hard to know that the world can pick him out and turn him into a monster at any given moment."
She continued, "That's what I fear, that's something that I carry — I think every Black mother does. All parents worry about their kids, but then when you see the news and you see people getting off for killing innocent children with no weapon it's like, that doesn't exempt my son."
Read the original article on People