Taraji P. Henson Channels Cookie Lyon During ‘Family Feud’ Game With Jimmy Fallon [Watch]
Empire star Taraji P. Henson got competitive with Jimmy Fallon playing Fast Family Feud on Tuesday’s episode of The Tonight Show. Henson quickly buzzed in and delivered enthusiastic answers to questions such as “Name something in your house you hide when guests come over.”
“The drugs!” Henson shouted, confessing her Empire character, Cookie, would hide the drugs and not her.
As EW reports, when asked to complete a phrase that ends in “balls,” Taraji replied, big, blazing, brass, and basketball. All wrong answers. Fallon buzzed in with the answer “blue” and won the game, prompting Henson to ask, “What’s wrong with big balls?” Check out their hilarious game in the clip below.
A previous Inquisitr article reported that Taraji is penning a memoir due 2016. Henson opens up in the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar about her role as leopard-print-loving Cookie Lyon, and she says life before Empire was “quiet success.”
“It was quiet, it was a quiet success,” she says of her 20-year pre-Empire acting career. “I could still live. Now it’s like … ”
After two episodes of Empire airing, Henson’s co-star Terrence Howard, who plays her ex-husband, Lucious Lyon, told her that she’d become “an icon in two weeks.”
“I was like, ‘Huh?'” Henson recalls. “Then I got on Twitter and was like, ‘You’re right.’ I’ve seen babies dressed up like Cookie, men dressed up like Cookie, dogs dressed up like Cookie…But you have to be into drag. If you’re not, it may not come off right.”
The inspirational style on the show has led to an unprecedented partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue. The retailer will bring clothing worn on the series to stores and online. As The Wrap reports, the collections will include fine jewelry from Alexis Bittar, women’s ready-to-wear from Cushnie et Ochs, men’s and women’s footwear from Jimmy Choo, and handbags and accessories from MCM.
“The lines between fashion and entertainment are intersecting,” said Marc Metrick, president of Saks Fifth Avenue. “Harnessing this moment is a key underpinning to our strategy as it brings energy and uniqueness to the shopping experience at Saks.”
During the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour, series creator Lee Daniels hinted that a Cookie spin-off series is in the works. In the meantime, Taraji P. Henson will continue to slay as Cookie Lyon when the hit FOX series returns September 23. The beautiful actress is also preparing to shoot Lee Daniels’s biopic of Richard Pryor, starring comedian Mike Epps as Pryor and Henson as his mother, Gertrude.
[Image via Douglas Gorenstein/NBC/EW]
[Image courtesy of NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images/NYDailyNews]
