Taraji P. Henson on Her Close Connection with 102-Year-Old Grandmother: 'She Allowed Me to Dream'
Taraji P. Henson on Her Close Connection with 102-Year-Old Grandmother: 'She Allowed Me to Dream'
Jack SmartThu, May 14, 2026 at 2:36 AM UTC
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Taraji P. Henson and Patsie Ballard in 2015
Credit: FOX Image Collection via Getty
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Taraji P. Henson said in a recent interview that her grandmother Patsie Ballard recently turned 102
“She was born in 1924. It just blows my mind,” said the Oscar nominee
Ballard, she added, will be coming to see Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Henson’s Broadway debut
Taraji P. Henson is opening up about a special family member: grandmother Patsie Ballard, who is 102 years old.
The actress had nothing but praise for Ballard, her mother Bernice Gordon’s mother, in a new interview with Vulture about Henson’s Broadway debut in August Wilson’sJoe Turner’s Come and Gone.
“She just turned 102, and she’s coming to see the play,” Henson, 55, revealed. “She was born in 1924. It just blows my mind.”
(Left-right:) Bernice Gordon, Taraji P. Henson and Patsie Ballard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019
Credit: Matt Baron/Shutterstock
She added, “Think about where they come from.” People in her grandmother’s position, born that long ago, “weren’t allowed to dream.”
When Henson would stay with her grandparents in North Carolina during summers as a kid, she continued, Ballard “allowed me to dream and create and come up with all these different characters and trust my instrument and sing that song in the mirror.”
It was that freedom that led the Oscar and Emmy nominee to explore the creativity that would lead to a thriving acting career. “I had nobody to play with,” Henson said of her summers staying with her mom’s parents. “That’s why I could play all these characters. Because all I had was time.”
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(Left-right:) Bernice Gordon, Taraji P. Henson and Patsie Ballard at the Academy Awards in 2009
Credit: Steve Granitz/WireImage
So, the mother of one added, when she earned her Academy Award nomination in 2009 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, “I had to bring her to the Oscars.” Ballard and Gordon joined Henson at that year’s ceremony, making it a special family affair.
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In Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, now playing at New York’s Barrymore Theatre, Henson plays Bertha Holly opposite Cedric the Entertainer as Seth Holly. Directed by Debbie Allen, the play’s story follows Herald Loomis (played by Joshua Boone), a man determined to reunite with his lost wife after years of forced labor. The five-time Tony Award-nominated production opened April 25 for a limited run through July 26.
Speaking in April to The New York Post's Alexa magazine, Henson said she comes “from a line of incredible mothers,” adding that Ballard, upon turning 102, was “mad because we had to have her stop driving.”
After leading Tyler Perry's movie Straw last year, Henson includes the drama 'Tis So Sweet among her upcoming screen projects.
Tickets for Joe Turner's Come and Goneare now on sale.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
