All About Regina King’s Sister, Reina King

Regina King and Reina King are sisters, best friends and creative partners.

Born in Los Angeles in 1975, Reina is Regina’s younger sister, and like the Poetic Justice star, also works in the entertainment industry. While she acted when she was younger, Reina later gravitated toward production, working as a producer and a talent agent for the latter half of her career.

The sisters combined their talents to start their own production company, Royal Ties Production, in 2017 and acted alongside each other on-screen for the first time in the 2024 Netflix film Shirley.

“We did our share of acting as little girls, but this is the first time on-screen, big or small, together, so it was a long time coming,” Regina told Entertainment Weekly in March 2024.

Fostering a creative partnership has meant that the King sisters’ relationship has evolved over time. When asked how they have grown as siblings after formally working together for the past seven years, Regina laughingly replied on a 2024 episode of The Bright Side podcast, “From my part [it’s] recognizing … our relationship shift from big sister, little sister to ‘damn, you pretty dope.’ ”

“It’s been like that for years, but it takes on different versions since Royal Ties has been in the place of actively producing things and not trying to get something produced,” Regina continued, adding of her partnership with Reina. “To see how we’re equals … We joke around and stuff. I can run the little sister jokes, but not anymore.”

Here’s everything to know about Regina King’s sister, Reina King.

Reina was born in California and found a love for acting early on

Regina’s younger sister Reina was born on April 11, 1975, in Los Angeles, while Regina was born on Jan. 15, 1971.

Growing up in L.A., the sisters sparked a love for acting and the entertainment industry early on, with Regina telling Netflix Queue in 2024, “We definitely have always had similar taste. We used to put on productions for our parents and family members, reciting poetry from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

“We’ve always loved to play and be creative and make things. And our mother always allowed us to play,” she added.

Their parents were not part of the industry, however — their mother, Gloria King, worked as a special education teacher and their father, Thomas Henry King Jr., as an electrician. Gloria and Thomas divorced in 1979.

While the siblings grew up in California, their mother is from Cincinnati, and they often spend holidays there. In a 2024 interview with WKRC, Regina shared, “I claim Cincinnati as my second home, but I’m not from Cincinnati.”

She went on to explain how filming Shirley in the Ohio city allowed the sisters to experience the area for the first time outside of “our grandmother’s church, our cousin’s houses and everybody who lives four miles away from each other in the same radius.”

She is a producer

The sisters co-founded a production company, Royal Ties Production, in 2017.

The company signed a first-look deal with Netflix in 2019 for both film and television. Per Royal Ties’ LinkedIn page, the deal was re-upped in 2023.

One of the notable films that Royal Ties produced is the 2024 Netflix film Shirley, which stars both Regina and Reina. The company also helped produce the Netflix miniseries A Man in Full starring Jeff Daniels.

During a 2024 episode of The Bright Side podcast, the sisters explained the inspiration to start Royal Ties. Regina said, “You know, when Reina decided to no longer continue in acting, it wasn’t like a big newsflash. She just kind of gravitated [to] doing so.”

“Reina has been a talent agent. She’s worked in post, production, you know, in all these different spaces within our entertainment industries that make the art of it,” Regina continued. “She had gathered just so much knowledge along the way, and it just made sense to bring all of that together.”

The sisters went on to explain how making “female-driven stories” was another huge motivation for them to create Royal Ties.

“I think more than anything was that we have such a huge love for storytelling and, being in the business for so long, have noticed that majority of artists who put out content, certain type of genre, certain type of storytelling, and we’ve always been a fan of all of it,” Regina said. “Just wanting to be in a space where we can do a little bit … And the desire to provide a space for those artists or art without walls, without barriers, without lines.”

Their names translate to the same meaning

Regina and Reina may be sisters, but another thing that bonds them together is their similar first names.

Both of their names translate to “queen” in different languages — Reina’s in Spanish and Regina’s in Latin.

The sisters addressed their names in a “Best Friend Challenge” video for Still Watching Netflix, during which Regina was asked, “Both of our names translate to queen, what would I say I’m the queen of?”

While one would guess that Regina is the queen of acting, according to Reina, her sister is actually the queen of organizing and assembling furniture. Although Regina said that, in her eyes, she is the queen of finding a bargain.

Reina’s childhood hero was Wonder Woman

In that same video for Netflix, Reina was asked who her childhood hero was, and although Regina thought the sisters would give the same answer, they took different routes.

Reina shared that Wonder Woman was her childhood hero, while Regina said she would pick The Incredible Hulk.

Regina went on to recall, “As a kid, someone asked [Reina], ‘What is she gonna be when she grows up?’ ”

“She said the Incredible Hulk,” Regina continued.

They starred in a movie together

Along with producing together, the King sisters star opposite each other in Netflix’s 2024 film Shirley.

Directed by John Ridley, the biographical drama tells the story of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black candidate for a major-party presidential election. Regina starred as the titular lead, while Reina played her sister Muriel St. Hill.

“We chose Shirley because we realized there were far too many people who didn’t even know [Chisholm’s] name,” Regina told Entertainment Weekly in March 2024. “We felt it was important that people not only know her name, but why she was important, relevant and inspiring.”

As for what it was like acting together for the first time in a movie, Reina shared on The Bright Side podcast that it was originally “not planned” for her to appear in Shirley.

“It was not part of any original discussion in the writing of that script and the discussion of production,” she explained. “I first said ‘no.’ But I thought about it, I talked to Regina, I felt like, ‘When would I get an opportunity like this again?’ ”

“I think somewhere inside of me, deep down, the acting bug is always there,” Reina continued. “I’m a big fan of theater. I used to say, ‘Oh if I were to go back, I would do something onstage.’ So [the bug] was in there, but it was 30 years deep in there.”

“When would we have the opportunity to be on the same project and also be playing sisters for this project about this woman we were so passionate about getting out to the masses, to audiences not just within the country but globally,” Reina added. “Who else but me should have played that role?”