Taraji P. Henson’s wedding to Kelvin Hayden is still months away, but is she eager to get the show on the road?
“Oh God, yeah,” the 48-year-old exclusively told Us Weekly at her Boutique of Hope charity event on Saturday, September 22. “Because I’m marrying my best friend. I know that’s cliché, but it’s the truth.”
Henson also revealed that her nuptials with the 35-year-old NFL alum will be a small affair. “Close family and friends,” she told Us. “All my family, all his family are close friends. Small, intimate.”
The Empire actress also let slip the timeframe for her wedding, saying, “It’ll be next summer, end of June, early July.”
Henson announced her engagement to Hayden in May. “I said yes y’all!!!” she wrote in the caption to an Instagram pic of her engagement ring. “He dropped to his knee and I almost passed out!!! 😩😩😂😂😂#sheisofficiallyoffthemarket and she is sooooooooooooo HAPPY!!!!!! #GODIS 💍💋💋💋.”
That diamond stunner, however, was nowhere to be seen at the event on Saturday. “My ring is in the shop right now,” Henson told Us. “The setting is too small for the rock.”
Amid all the wedding excitement, Henson hosted the Los Angeles event for an important cause: the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which the actress named after her late father, who struggled with PTSD after serving in the Vietnam War.
“The reason why this is such a passion for me is because I think the stigma around mental illness [is] just horrible,” the Golden Globe winner told Us. “We’re human. We’re expected to be tough and strong all the time, but that’s impossible. You see what’s going on in the world.”
She continued, “I just felt there was something missing, especially in the African American community … It’s taboo in our community. We have to change that. Then all of a sudden, this was born, and I was like, it has to be called the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation. I have to honor my dad.”
