Taraji P. Henson revealed she was deeply affected by the tragic murder of her son’s father while filming the 2001 drama Baby Boy.
During her appearance on the August 5 episode of Lena Waithe’s Legacy Talk podcast, Henson opened up about how closely the film mirrored her real life. Reflecting on her breakout role as Yvette—the strong-willed girlfriend to Tyrese Gibson’s character Jody—she shared how the story hit close to home.
Around the seven-minute mark, Henson admitted the “dysfunctional relationship” in the film felt all too familiar.
“There were times when I read that script where I got goosebumps and had to put it down,” she told Waithe. “It was literally the blueprint to my baby’s father and my relationship. That young love, that young toxic hood love. I mean, verbatim.”
Taraji P. Henson recalled how the devastating loss of her then-boyfriend, William LaMarr “Mark” Johnson, felt eerily similar to a scene in Baby Boy where her character Yvette has nightmares about Jody dying. Johnson, who was tragically stabbed to death in 2003 at age 34, was the father of her son Marcell, born in 1994.
“I remember when my son’s father was murdered, I called John [Singleton] and said, ‘The dream came true,'” Henson shared.
Reflecting on the role, she added, “When anyone asks what the closest role to me was, that probably was it.” She also touched on how people initially doubted her acting skills because the role hit so close to home. “I kind of got chastised a little bit. People were like, ‘Where did they find her? She’s not a real actor. They found this girl off the street.’ And for so long I was just known as that girl from Baby Boy. Nobody even knew my name.”
Back in 2021, on her Facebook Watch show Peace of Mind with Taraji, the actress opened up about the painful moment she had to figure out how to tell her young son about his father’s death. At the time of the murder, Marcell was just 9 years old, and she told him his dad had died in an accident.
“Later on in life he found out and came back to me like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me my daddy was murdered?'” she revealed. “And so then we had to get therapy.”
