Award-winning actress reveals she thought of committing suicide during COVID-19 pandemic

Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominated actress Taraji P Henson, who is famous for her roles in Baby Boy and Hustle & Flow among others, recently disclosed that she had contemplated taking her own life at a certain point of time during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Henson talked about the dark moments on her “Peace of Mind with Taraji” Facebook Watch series while speaking to co-host Tracie Jade and psychologist Dr. LaShonda Green. “For a couple of days, I couldn’t get out of bed and that’s not me. People were calling me, I wasn’t responding. I just didn’t care. So one day I just blurted it out, to my girlfriend. She called me in the morning and I was like, ‘You know I thought about killing myself last night. Oh my God, I feel so much better. I’m not gonna do it now. For me, I’m no professional, but I felt like, if I don’t say it, it becomes a plan. And what scared me, is that I did it two nights in a row. And the thoughts kept coming. Now I started think about how.”

Despite feeling “ashamed” and fearing her friends’ reaction to her condition, Henson opened up about her traumatic experience to a girlfriend. “At first, it was like, I don’t want to be here. And then I started thinking about going and getting the gun. And that’s why when I woke up the next morning, and I blurted it out. Because I felt like after a while it was going to take over me and it was going to become a plan because that’s how strong my brain is.”

Taraji P Henson won a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Cookie Lyon in the TV show ‘Empire.’ The actress earned her Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 2008 romantic drama film ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’