Taraji P. Henson Talks About Getting Her Mind Right Following Split

It didn’t take another man to help Taraji P. Henson get her groove back!

Source: Sami Drasin / Getty

The actress revealed last month that she’d split with her fiancé Kelvin Hayden after dating for four years. Henson confirmed the split after a flossin’ her fifty-years-fine bawwwwdy during a birthday trip to Mexico.

“I am much better,” Henson told ET’s Kevin Frazier in an interview Friday. With her milestone 50th birthday this year Henson knew she had to seize control as she felt herself feeling low.

“I felt myself slipping and so I was like, ‘You know what I am not going to do is let 50 happen to me,” she said. “I am going to get control of this mentally and not be like, ‘You are getting old, don’t nobody care, you ain’t working,’ Well, duh, no one is working, it is COVID. So I felt that coming.”

After calling her trainer and staying positive, she says she doesn’t “have those low lows anymore,” before sending a message to others who might be feeling down. “So anybody out there, that might be going through this darkness, literally, working out, it really works.”

In the meantime, Taraji is experiencing some career milestones as well. She’ll be hosting the American Music Awards tonight and says she can’t wait to get dressed up for the big event.

“I got called to present at the Billboards and then my agent goes, ‘Oh by the way, they want to know if you want to host the AMAs and I am like, ‘What? Hell yeah, I want to get off this sofa and be glamorous and pretty,'” she said. “I studied musical theater, so any time I get to be on a live theater stage, that’s how I look at it. I know it is an award show for music but it is still a chance for me to show my different talents.”

Henson’s also the host and co-producer of Wondery and Universal Music Group’s Jacked: Rise of the New Jack Sound, a 6-part podcast series about the of the rise and fall of New Jack Swing.

The 2020 AMAs air live on Sunday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

What’s the best way you deal with your emotions following a break up? How do you guys work your way out of a funk?