Regina King Opens Up: Reflecting on Life After Loss and Cherishing Memories with Son Ian

Regina King

Regina King favorite role has been that of being a mom. She talked about being a mother in her first television interview after her 26-year-old son, Ian Alexander Jr. committed suicide in January 2022. The actress dedicated a film about an activist and politician Shirley Chisholm titled Shirley to her late son.
King revealed that more in her life had changed since the death of her son. “I’m a different person, you know, now than I was January 19 [2022 before her son died],” she told “ Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts . “Grief is a journey. I understand that grief is love that has no place to go.”
She said she wanted to memorialize Ian in the “totality” of who he is, referencing her son in the present tense because “he’s always with me,” King stated. “He gave me joy and happiness, but he couldn’t find it for himself.” “I mean, it seems like a lifetime. But, with depression, people expect it to go a certain way, “and they expect that it looks and feels a certain way.
She paused, began to cry.
To have to go to this, and not even be able to have the minutes to sit with Ian’s choice, which I respect and, I think, I understand,” King told me. “He didn’t choose to stay anywhere, he didn’t want to be here anymore. . . . And it’s hard for people to get their minds around that, because I didn’t live with their experience, I didn’t live Ian’s experience.”
“You know, I’m still bereft,” King continued. “I understand that my grief is everybody’s grief. But the fact is, no one is Ian’s mother except me. And so this sorrow, it will never go away, it will always be with me. Throughout the years, Ian accompanied the talented actress to various events. On the recent Academy Awards, she showed up wearing orange, which was Ian’s favorite color on her . She told the public that her “favorite thing about [herself was] being Ian’s mom” and said she “can’t do that and I can’t get up here and say all the stuff that I want to say about a community” we have such a deep love and respect for “if I don’t preach what I practice.