The Untold Truth Of Regina King

Regina King is an amazing talent, but, as a child, her mother encouraged her to study and pursue art, according to a Marie Claire feature profiling the actress. "My mom allowed us to take any art we wanted to take, if she could afford it, but we had to finish it out," she told the magazine in 2019.

King also described her mom as "granola," explaining to Marie Claire that they were not permitted to eat sugary cereal and consumed a diet heavy on kale — before it was trendy. Based on that detail alone, we'd guess King's mom knew all the best ways to cook with kale and used kale as a secret ingredient in recipes.

Despite the playful hippie-heavy jabs, King's love for her mother is evident, as is her deep-rooted respect for the grounded upbringing her mom provided. According to E! News, while accepting the Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for her portrayal of Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk, King thanked her mother. "I'm an example of what it looks like when support and love is poured into someone." She continued, "Mom, I love you so much. Thank you for teaching me that god is always leaning, always has been leaning in my direction," she said.

Every actor has a first successful audition story, and Regina King's is pretty amusing. She told W magazine that she was about 10 years old when she had her first big audition for a McDonald's commercial. "And that was my first experience of the spit bucket, for when that quarter-pounder with cheese that tasted so good at 10:00 a.m., at 11:00 tastes like dirt. So you bite into it and 'Mmm!' Spit," she recalled in her interview. She elaborated that, under most circumstances, her mother wouldn't allow her to eat fast food, so she wanted to relish the opportunity. She recounted the gleeful experience, saying, "I have struck gold. But I think they just saw this little girl's face getting sour. And they let me know, 'Well, you don't have to actually eat it.' I was like, 'Wow!'"

These days, King tries to maintain a healthier diet. She told Health that she eats one salad minimum every day. But that doesn't mean she's above a good splurge. "I love all food! It depends on the mood. I love sweets. I love fried foods. You fry it, I'll try it," she said.

Regina King penned an essay about divorce in the book He Never Came Home: Interviews, Stories, and Essays from Daughters on Life Without Their Fathers. It was later republished in Essence. In this emotional deep dive, King talked about being the product of divorce and going through one of her own.

In the piece, she recounted her experience growing up with parents who constantly sparred and who eventually separated. While she maintained a relationship with her dad for many years, she noted that his presence became more sporadic as she grew older. "Girls need their dads in their lives for so many reasons. There are certain things about life and relationships that only a father can teach his daughter," she wrote. 

The importance of having both parents present stuck with King even as she went through her own relationship trials. After nine years of marriage, King and her husband divorced, according to her essay. She discussed her struggle to make peace with what she called the "messiness that had gone down," stating, "It wasn't easy, but we started putting in the work it took to find our way back to a friendship."

As noted by Variety, Regina King is committed to her work with the I Have a Dream Foundation, an organization that seeks to help low-income youth pursue educational opportunities with financial support. "I am doing what God meant for us all to do." She continued, "You have to put your money where your mouth is. If you believe in the future, it starts with fertilizing those babies, those seeds," she stated.

This isn't the only time King has supported a cause she feels passionately about. In 2007, according to WebMD, the actress underwent a public HIV test to raise awareness in the African American community about the critical importance of getting tested. "If I can be honest and help them realize it's not just who they sleep with, but who their partner has slept with, then maybe I can be a part of protecting a lot of people," she shared.

While Regina King is best known for her stellar acting work, she's accomplished behind the scenes as well. And, unlike many other performers in the industry, King didn't expect her celebrity status alone to land her some initial directing gigs. Instead, according to a profile in Interview Magazine, she applied for and was accepted into the ABC directing program, where she shadowed behind the scenes for hit shows like Scandal and Private Practice. It was there and then that King learned the ropes and got her feet wet. She told Interview that Shonda Rhimes was a big "cheerleader," encouraging her to pursue her directorial ambitions.

King continues to amass impressive directing credits, but she admits that it took her a number of years to finally realize this dream of hers. While this delay was, in part, due to raising a child, she told Interview that anxiety played a role, too. "Also the fear that I would be regarded as a person that's only doing this because of vanity, not because it's an opportunity for me to exercise another muscle or express my creativity in another way," she said.

While Regina King's career is far from waning, the Hollywood heavy-hitter isn't satisfied with the status quo and continues to push the envelope. She and sister Reina launched their own production company, Royal Ties, and signed a deal to produce programming for Netflix, according to The Wrap.

The King sisters are on a mission greater than making movies, though. According to Marie Claire, while accepting an award at the 2019 Golden Globes, King made a big public promise that everything she and her company produces will be made up of at least half women within a couple of years. King later expressed frustration to Marie Claire that she felt immense external pressure to act on this vow almost immediately: "Not having as many of the opportunities or resources as a white man or a white woman in the industry, but now that I'm the one that's decided to say that I'm going to use what I've been given to do more, it needs to have been done yesterday?"

While enjoying an episode of Watchmen, fans may have noticed Regina King's tattoo and wondered if it was fake or if it had significance to the show. But it turns out her arm ink is real and meaningful — but for personal reasons. 

King told Vulture that her tattoo is the Aramaic symbol for "unconditional love," and she explained that she and her son, Ian, got matching tattoos before he went off to college. She said. "His is huge, from his elbow to his wrist, but he said, 'No, you can't get that size, Mom!'" She added, "We considered different ones, but we felt this really embodies how we feel about each other."

Still, others have spotted it and have noticed that it's actually Hebrew, according to the site Kveller. A writer for the site did research of her own and discovered that the tattoo "is one of 72 three-letter combinations in the Book of Exodus that are considered to be 'names of God.'" Moreover, as noted in the Kveller article, the tattoo does, indeed, represent "unconditional love," but is actually not Aramaic as King previously claimed.

Regina King kicks some butt and looks amazing doing so as Sister Night in HBO's Watchmen. A grounded woman on a mission by day and a masked superhero who'll do what it takes by night, King brings heart and muscle to an incredibly versatile role.

"Reading the pilot, what struck me was this woman is kind of a reflection of all of us — meaning all humans — in the regard that we are always wearing masks in our lives," King told IndieWire. She elaborated that, like her character, all people have facades for the different parts of their everyday worlds — from their work life to their home life and everything in between. Sister Night's guise is just a little more pronounced — and her veil is literal. 

What's more, the actress loves that she gets to bring physicality to this role. "Sister waited until she was almost 50 to be a superhero," she told Marie Claire. "It's something I've always wanted to do, you know, be a woman physically kicking a**."