Regina King shares her journey coping with her son Ian Alexander Jr.’s suicide over two years ago, emphasizing his “choice” and her grieving process in an interview.
“When it comes to depression, people expect it to look a certain way and they expect it to look heavy,” King said of Alexander Jr.’s struggles in her first extensive comments since he died.
“To have to experience this and not be able to have the time to just sit with Ian’s choice, which I respect and understand, that he didn’t want to be here anymore. That’s a hard thing for other people to receive because they did not live our experience, did not live Ian’s journey.”
“I was so angry with God,” she said. “Why would that weight be given to Ian? Of all of the things that we had gone through with the therapy, with psychiatrists and programs — and Ian was like, ‘I’m tired of talking, Mom.’”
“I’m a different person now than I was on Jan. 19 [before Alexander Jr. died],” she said.
“Grief is a journey. I understand that grief is love that has no place to go. I know that it’s important to me to honor Ian in the totality of who he is, speak about him in the present, because he is always with me and the joy and happiness that he gave all of us.”
She added,
“My favorite thing about myself is being Ian’s mom. And I can’t say that with a smile, with tears, with all of the emotion that comes with that. I can’t do that if I did not respect the journey.”
King, who fought back tears during the talk, said,
“Sometimes, a lot of guilt comes over me. When a parent loses a child, you still wonder, ‘What could I have done so that wouldn’t have happened?’
I know that I share this grief with everyone, but no one else is Ian’s mom, you know? Only me. So it’s mine.
And the sadness will never go away. It’ll always be with me. And I think I saw somewhere, the sadness is a reminder of how much he means to me, you know?”
King honored Alexander Jr. on what would have been his 27th birthday last year.
“January 19th is Ian’s Worthday. As we still process his physical absence, we celebrate his presence,” King wrote in an Instagram post at the time.
“We are all in different places on the planet…so is Ian. His spirit is the thread that connects us.”
The interviewer also disclosed King’s subtle homage to Alexander Jr. during the 2024 Oscars, where she donned an orange dress—his favorite color. Additionally, King’s mention of feeling her son’s presence in “Ian-spirations” was also highlighted.
King’s portrayal of trailblazing congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in the Netflix biopic Shirley, premiering on March 22, is dedicated to Alexander Jr.
It was mentioned that King expressed her readiness to discuss her son’s death and preferred addressing it in one interview while promoting Shirley.
“I want to talk about my son,” Roberts recalled King telling her at the Oscars. “I don’t want to make him a poster child for what’s going on. I want to talk about it once and then — “
