Taraji P. Henson talks about her past experience with abuse during an episode of her Facebook Watch series, “Peace of Mind With Taraji.”
“Sometimes as women what we do is we fall in love and we go, ‘You know what? I’ll fix it later,'” she told co-host Tracie Jade and guest, Angela Simmons. “For me it was when blood was drawn, 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.”
This is not the first time Henson has opened up about the turbulent relationship.
In her memoir “Around the Way Girl,” Henson details meeting former partner Mark when she was just 17 years old. She says their problems arose because Mark felt he was somehow inferior to Henson.
“You’re better than me,” writes that he told her in the book. “You need to leave me alone.”
“You can find yourself in any bad situation in life,” she told ET at the time. “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.”
Henson soon became pregnant. She remained in school during her pregnancy but after the birth of her son, Marcell, things between them turned physical.
“The next thing I knew, Mark’s balled-up fist was coming straight for my face. I fell onto the bed crying and holding my mouth; blood seeped off my lips and across my teeth,” Henson writes. “Droplets splashed across my shoes … slowly creeping into the fibers of my suede boots.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
You can also seek out information for mental health support:
