Divorce, racism, and a devastating death — Regina King is a superstar, but despite the glitz
of her Hollywood success, her life also has been marked by tragedy.
Keep watching for the details.
Regina King has been successful in show business, but she hasn't always had it easy in life.
Her childhood was irrevocably altered at the age of 8, when her own parents, Gloria and
Thomas King, divorced, and her father drifted out of her life.
Decades after King saw her parents go through the experience of divorce, she sadly went
through a divorce of her own in 2007.
She was once married to music producer Ian Alexander Sr., with whom she had one son named
Ian, but things didn't work out between them in the end — something the actor regretted
for their son's sake.
She wrote in He Never Came Home,
"I was married for nine years before my husband and I separated and eventually divorced.
Just as I'd watched my parents arguing and fighting, my son watched his parents arguing
and fighting.
It was like history repeating itself, and I felt terrible about him having to witness
that."
Thankfully, her post-divorce relationship with her ex-husband was nothing like her parents'
had been.
She wrote,
"It's kind of crazy to think that I've now been divorced longer than I was married, but
I appreciate the journey, because it brought my ex and I back to a friendship that helped
us become great co-parents."
After the breakdown of her marriage, King notably dated fellow actor Malcolm Jamal Warner
for a couple of years, though she kept it largely private.
She told The Daily Beast in 2012,
"I have to keep something for me and that has to be my personal relationships.
Neither one of us is out there talking about it and we won't be."
But King and Warner eventually broke up in 2013, according to the New York Daily News.
We all have to make difficult choices.
In the balance of Regina King's life, there was no question that her child came before
work.
She didn't give up on her career to take care of Ian Alexander Jr., but she compromised:
The star decided not to accept any acting jobs that took her out of her and her son's
hometown.
When asked by CBS This Morning: Saturday host Michelle Miller whether it was hard to say
no to projects, the answer came easily to King.
She told Miller,
"No.
I've seen so many examples of parents that have had to make the choice to not be there
as consistent in their children's lives."
"And just kind of what the aftermath was of that."
The actor-director simply knew that wasn't the life she wanted for her only child.
While speaking with InStyle about risks she'd taken throughout her fruitful career, King
cited this choice, saying,
"What comes to mind is that the biggest risk I took career-wise was not to take any jobs
outside of L.A. when Ian was about 9 years old."
Although this all meant she had to take more TV roles than she had in the past and turn
down certain movies, King had no regrets and was able to see how this choice benefited
her in the end.
She told SheKnows,
"That's how my TV career started.
The answer is making, most of the time, making the tough choice leads you [two] down a beautiful
path."
Being Black in America comes with an inherent and painful set of challenges, something of
which Regina King is all too aware.
Notably, she finds that Black men are typically depicted in a narrow way in media and wanted
to change that conversation through 2020's One Night in Miami..., which tells the true
story of an exchange between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown, which touched
King.
She told InStyle,
"It really humanized them.
I feel like we don't get the opportunity to see Black men like this, and most of us have
Black men who are this layered in our lives, who have this much love and strength and vulnerability."
"You know, you brothers, you all are our bright and shining future.
I never— I never lose sight of that."
At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests that same year, King knew that she had to
use her platform to influence change in every way she could.
She wore a t-shirt featuring Breonna Taylor — who was killed by police in her own home
in Louisville, Kentucky — and the words "Say Her Name" to the 2020 Emmys.
For King, her industry has a responsibility to depict the reality of race relations in
America — especially when it comes to police killings.
"We have officers in Louisville who have not been charged for Bre— for Breonna Taylor's
murder."
She told Harper's Bazaar in 2021,
"Hollywood has been responsible for perpetuating the idea that officers should use excessive
force on Black people and I'm not down with that.
On the flipside, I've been a part of projects that actually shine a light on the reality
of the police's relationship with the Black community."
"Look at him and tell me this isn't the man who killed your son."
Regina King is especially cognizant of living at the intersection of Blackness and womanhood,
and the extra challenges these two identities have presented for her throughout her life
and career.
For The Hollywood Reporter, filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood asked King if she felt that
she was "​touching greatness," and the actor circumvented the question in her answer.
Reflecting on why that was, she said,
"I feel like just as Black women, we are so conditioned to not feel that it's OK to want
to be great.
Hence how I came into my whole response when you asked that question.
But also, something I find often with Black women is that you give us a little window,
we're going to kick it all the way open and take that moment."
Miss Congeniality 2 co-star Sandra Bullock also addressed her and King's shared womanhood
to Vanity Fair, saying,
"We've always had to be scrappy and put your head down and do the work and be grateful
for what you have.
As a Black woman, [King has] had to do that a thousand times more."
In an interview with The Guardian, King explained how her identity blocked her confidence in
a way at the start of her career and stopped her from taking too many risks in her work
at first, saying,
"I don't think that that's specific to being Black and being a woman, but I do feel like
being Black and being a woman, it does make it harder to break through those moments,
you know?"
When Regina King's son, Ian Alexander Jr., was little, he wasn't particularly aware of
the politics of race.
He couldn't really see what difference it made for his friends to have diverse backgrounds;
they were his rainbow coalition, as his famous mom put it.
While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, King told a story about when her son
was a pre-teen, saying,
"When he was younger, he was always paying attention to our conversations, and he asked
me, 'Why when you guys talk' — you guys being adults — 'do you always have to ask
what color someone was?'"
"Your kids are seeing what you do."
Explaining that Ian Jr.'s friend group became more predominantly Black a few years later,
King attributed this shift to his growing understanding of racial dynamics, and of the
racism that was actually present in his own circles.
She said,
"It was because certain things were happening in conversations that were making him go,
'Woo, OK, this doesn't feel right.'
Certain things that some of the white boys would say that he was like, 'Yo, you shouldn't
feel comfortable saying that.'"
It may have taken Ian Jr. a while to understand where his mom was coming from, but what's
certain is that he never took her for granted: To mark King's birthday in January 2021, he
wrote on Instagram,
"To have you as my mother is the greatest gift I could ask for.
To be all that you are while always having the time to be there, love and support me
unconditionally is truly remarkable."
The pandemic brought on intense emotional upheaval for just about every person in the
world — and Regina King certainly found herself swept up in the strangeness and tragedy
of it all.
She told The Hollywood Reporter,
"Sometimes I feel myself trying to push the emotion down.
During the pandemic, I've discovered just how much pushing the emotion down away, protecting
myself, that I've been doing — I don't think I've cried more since I was probably 14."
One difficult thing the actor-director went through while COVID-19 restrictions were in
full effect was not being able to experience the thrill of sharing her precious work, One
Night in Miami..., with people in the way it deserved.
Understandably, King teared up as she told Vanity Fair,
"We never got the opportunity to see our film with an audience.
I'm grateful to be healthy.
I'm grateful that all of our crew and cast are healthy.
[…] But we didn't get a chance to share that."
But like many others, one of the most incomprehensible experiences for King was learning of people
she knew who were sadly lost to the virus.
"We so quickly say, 'how you doin?
I'm fine.'
And so many of us are not fine."
She told CBS This Morning,
"Sometimes it's even as simple as, now that things are opening up and you're going to
your regular store or someplace that you used to go."
"And to find out that face, that person that you knew so well is no longer with us, is–"
As hard as Regina King was hit by the untimely deaths of acquaintances during the COVID-19
pandemic, it's hard to imagine any experience being more horribly painful than losing her
beloved only son, Ian Alexander Jr.
The 26-year-old tragically died by suicide in January 2022.
Ian Jr., a musician, wrote on Twitter days before his death,
"I don't think instagram is healthy for me."
The young artist had released two singles on Spotify, one titled "Work It Out" in 2021,
and one called "Green Eyes" in 2022.
He was scheduled to play a show in Los Angeles just days after his death, according to his
last Instagram post.
King told People in a statement,
"Our family is devastated at the deepest level by the loss of Ian.
He is such a bright light who cared so deeply about the happiness of others.
Our family asks for respectful consideration during this private time.
Thank you."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.