Cookie Lyon doesn't take nonsense from anybody, and as it turns out, neither does Taraji P. Henson, the actress who plays her.
In an interview with Uptown, the Empire star revealed that she is sending her son to a historically black college because he has been racially profiled on the University of Southern California campus.
"My child has been racially profiled. He was in Glendale, Calif., and did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car," she explained to the magazine. "It was bogus because they didn't give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for."
His troubles didn't stop there. After her 20-year-old son Marcel found himself involved in another incident involving police, Henson decided she would send her son to a different university altogether.
"Then he's at University of Southern California, the school that I was going to transfer him to, when police stopped him for having his hands in his pockets," she continued. "So guess where he's going? Howard University. I'm not paying $50K so I can't sleep at night wondering, 'Is this the night my son is getting racially profiled on campus?'"
Marcel is Henson's only child, whom she shares with her high school sweetheart.
Henson also talks about how privileged she feels to be one of the many black women leads on a hit TV show, joining the ranks of Kerry Washington and Viola Davis, who star on Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder, respectively.
"It feels good that there's not just one black person. I don't like that we get fixated on one or two at a time, or three at a time. If you look at caucasian Hollywood, every year there's a handful of new faces you've never seen before, then after that, they got five movies coming out and they're introducing you to more talent. So I'm just so happy to see what's happening on television right now. We have options and that's how it should be," Henson said.
Since becoming a breakout hit, Empire has made Henson a household name, but that doesn't mean she's going to rely on the buzz. She dished to the magazine that she has come a long way from the early days of her career and hopes that she can continue to find success.
"This journey is not over," she said. "I've come a long way from 'Aye, that's that girl from Baby Boy,' to now people know how to pronounce my name. But I'm just scratching the surface. For whatever reason, God gave me this life, and I'm not gon' f--k it up."