Ian Alexander Jr. and Regina King on Feb. 22, 2014.Photo:John Sciulli/Getty
John Sciulli/Getty
In King’sHarper’s BAZAARApril 2024 cover story for its Possibility Issue, the Oscar winner, 54, said, “I feel like I am in a place now where my faith has really been challenged,” while opening up about life since Ian, whom she shared with ex-husband Ian Alexander Sr., died.
“I don’t know that I should say this, because I feel like it’s where I used to be, but that idea that what you put into it is what you get back — it’s been proven to me that that’s not necessarily true,” she continued.
“When I look at all of the work and everything that we and Ian put into trying to move through the depression … I mean, he’s pure joy and pure light,” she added of her son, who was a DJ and performing musician.
“But he was struggling so much. We knew. We knew what we were going through, but he never presented that way,” she added of her son’s experience withdepression. “That’s why I know that a smile doesn’t always mean happy. He would never not let whoever he was with feel like they were the most special person in the world. So for me, I’m like, ‘Man, he was putting a lot into things, a lot into people, a lot into this world, and yet it wasn’t translating back. ' "
Regina King in Harper’s Bazaar.Luis Alberto Rodriguez
Luis Alberto Rodriguez
King told the outlet that she is still processing Ian’s death and spoke to the importance of meeting other women who have lost their children to discuss their grief journeys. “One thing that I feel like every mother that I talk to feels like is that no one could have prepared me for this,” she said. “No one told me this part. There’s something about them, 11 years, 12 years later—the grief is still there.
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In the cover story, King also shared that she was grateful the cast and crew of her new Netflix movieShirleysupported her in the aftermath of Ian’s death.Harper’s Bazaarreported Ian’s death came roughly one month after King began filming the movie, in which she stars asShirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress.
Regina King and Ian Alexander Jr. on Oct. 18, 2017.Vivien Killilea/Getty
Vivien Killilea/Getty
“I know Ian would have felt like if I didn’t finish something because of a choice that he needed to make, then I wasn’t honoring him,” she said. “We all landed at the finish line on Ian’s wings. He guided us there.”
Shirleyalso stars the lateLance Reddick,Lucas HedgesandTerrence Howard. King’s younger sister Reina King also worked as a producer on the movie, which begins streaming on Netflix Friday.
source: people.com
