Taraji P. Henson is ready to show fans a new side of herself.
ET’s Rachel Smith spoke with the actress at Thursday’s TIME 100 Gala in New York City, and Henson, 53, teased what fans can expect from her upcoming children’s book, You can be a good friend (no matter what!)which will be released on June 18th.
“You always hear that saying: ‘Never kill the child inside you.’ I’m introducing my little TJ to the world. She’s the little girl that allows me to play to this day,” Henson told ET. “I have a salon where I go, I have a doll’s head… That’s where I go when I play.”
“When I grew up, as a kid, we didn’t have much. I remember looking at the catalogs and going around all the toys and saying, ‘One day when I’m rich, I’m going to buy this and I’m going to have a little girl,'” she continued. “I kept that promise to myself.”
Now, Henson said, when “people ask, ‘How do you stay so young?'” she responds, “It’s because that little girl inside me still has a big voice in my life.”
“That’s what the book is about, introducing little TJ. Not only that, (but also) teach children to accept their differences, to accept the differences of others and to always see the glass as half full,” she said. “You’re going to encounter opposition in life, how do you deal with it? Are you going to make the best of it or are you going to let the negativity drag you down? Your joy is always a choice. You get to make that choice.”
Thursday was a big night for Henson as she was one of the Timehonored. Earlier this month, she was named one of the magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, complete with a tribute from Mary J. Blige.
In her tribute to Henson, Blige praised her courage, writing, “What I love most about her is that she is unapologetically herself. Taraji is a real woman — she doesn’t bite her tongue and isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes in.” “
Henson told ET that Blige’s words meant “the world” to her, adding, “I feel the same way about her.”
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