Taraji P. Henson recently dropped a bombshell about her past experience with abuse.
In a sneak peek for the upcoming episode of her Facebook Watch series, “Peace of Mind Taraji,” with co-host Tracie Jade and special guest Angela Simmons, the veteran actress opened up when she made the brave decision to leave an abusive relationship.
“Sometimes as women what we do is we fall in love and we go, ‘You know what? I’ll fix it later,’ ” the 51-year-old began. However the “Empire” star said her time to address those issues in her relationship came “when blood was drawn.”
She continued, “Because it started with the bruises and grabbing, things like that. And then once the fist came — I’m missing a piece of my lip to this day — that’s when I knew I had to go.” The D.C. native later revealed that she dealt with abuse early on and made it a priority not to expose her son, Marcell Johnson, to that at the time. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want my son around this,’ ” she explained.
The star later offered some words of advice to viewers who may possibly be in a similar environment, stating, “You can find yourself in any bad situation in life. Guess who it is up to to get out of it? You. That’s it.” “If you’re not chained to a wall and no one has a gun to your head and says, ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ where’s the power? You have the power,” she added.
Henson has often been open to speaking about the traumas she’s been through, which is one of the many reasons why she and co-host Jade created the social media series, as a way to “heal.”
“It’s not like I’m some celebrity that said I’m gonna do a talk show and I’m gonna ask people a bunch of questions, no. We are audience members ourselves,” she said while speaking to “Entertainment Tonight” in 2016.
“Peace of Mind with Taraji” is set to make its season-two premiere on Monday, Oct. 25, after being renewed for a second season last August.
This go-round Henson and Jade will appear for 10 episodes featuring an array of celebrity guests, including Megan Thee Stallion, Chöle Bailey and more who will discuss a series of topics with the ladies such as social media bullying, gun violence, overcoming adversity and repression of emotion in Black men.
