Lee Daniels took to Instagram on Jan. 10 to pay tribute to his younger sister, Lydia Ruth Daniels-Rooks, who recently passed away. According to the award-winning director, Lydia helped inspire the outspoken queen bee, Cookie Lyon from his hit TV show Empire.
“As the fires are burning, so is my heart. My younger sister Lydia has passed. She was also my best friend,” the 65-year-old director captioned a photo of himself nestled up against Lydia smiling. “In Empire, the character of Cookie was based partly on her life. She’s left four beautiful children and five grandchildren behind. RIP Girly…I LOVE YOU FOREVER.”
Daniels did not specify Lydia’s cause of death.
Social media users react to Lydia’s passing.
Fans and celebs stormed the comments section with messages filled with love and support for the Oscar-nominated Hollywood star, including actress and TV host TS Madison, who wrote, “Omg I’m soooo sorry for your loss.”
Pose star, Billy Porter, penned, “So sorry for your loss. Sending you all the love and peace that’s possible.”
Halle Berry, who won an Oscar for Monster’s Ball, a film produced by Daniels, expressed her support in the comments, writing, “Sending all my love to you and your family.”
RELATED CONTENT: Rotimi Says 50 Cent Was In His ‘Marketing Genius’ Bag When He Started A ‘Beef’ Between ‘Power’ And ‘Empire’
Source: Variety / Getty
Taraji P. Henson portrayed Cookie Lyon on Empire, the hit Fox drama that aired from 2015 to 2020. Over the course of its six-season run, Cookie, the bold and fearless wife of Lucious Lyon (played by Terrence Howard), fought to reclaim her place in Empire Entertainment after serving time for drug dealing, Deadline noted. Henson’s standout performance earned her multiple Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe win in 2016 for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama.
Source: Gilbert Flores / Getty
Cookie was also a reflection of Daniels’ mother and grandmother.
In a 2015 interview with AdWeek, Daniels shared that Cookie was inspired not only by his sister but also by his mother and grandmother, who were both strong and resilient women in their own right. Daniels recalled that his mother, much like the iconic Cookie, would often use a broomstick to hit him, just as Cookie did to her son Hakeem (played by Bryshere Y. Gray) whenever he got into trouble on the show.
“When you have a lot of siblings, you always do something to feel special. I was beating my sisters up — I was a total jerk,” he revealed. “I would always hold my cast up in front of me when my mother would go to slap me. And one day I held my cast up and she had a broom and she went for me [laughs].”
Daniels continued, “So yes, my mother’s a little bit of Cookie, but really my grandmother is Cookie, [as is] my sister. My grandmother was a corrupt politician in the ’60s. She had many of the judges in her pocket in Philadelphia—and she carried a gun. She would get blacks to come out and vote. And my sister was a drug dealer, as many of my friends were. It was the only way we knew how to make a living—that or robbing the system that we lived in. That’s the world we lived in.”
RELATED CONTENT: Taraji P. Henson Fired Her Team When They Couldn’t Devise Ways To Capitalize On Her ‘Empire’ Role, ‘Everybody Had To F—g Go’
