Thumbnail for 103576

‘Empire’ Star Derek Luke Slams Followers For Criticizing Wife's Race

Actor Derek Luke‘s online followers became concerned with the race of his wife recently, and he’s not having it.

Luke, 41, addressed the issue via Instagram after he noticed some comments on one of his social media accounts concerned with the fact that his wife is not Black. He has been married to actress Sophia Adella Luke (born Hernandez) for 17 years, and he put critics in their place with a lengthy caption on a picture of him and his wife.

Luke said in the post that who he marries is no one’s business and multi-racial marriages should not be a “problem” in this day and age. His Instagram response was posted last week but caught major outlets’ attention on Wednesday.

I never usually entertain the opinions of others because everyone is entitled to they’re own opinion. (Positive or Negative) But we’re in the year of 2015 & when should it be a “problem” to date outside of your race? Why is that an issue AGAIN? I’m doing the unusual & going through my comments & the comments I see about my wife being another race is bugging me out. Who one chooses to date is that persons business. Instead of focusing on (Happiness) & (pure Love) for some reason some folks are still focused on (Color). Doesn’t make any sense to me. But I guess that’s the ignorance of OTHERS. My wife may not be Black but she is mine. And she’s mine with a heart of gold. People are so quick to judge but can’t even distinguish the difference of another’s race. Sophia Luke is Hispanic. She’s not white, she’s not black, she’s not Chinese, she’s Hispanic. And she’s mine!!

A photo posted by Derek Luke (@iamderekluke) on Jul 12, 2015 at 9:04am PDT

The actor also corrected commenters who attempted to guess his wife’s race. Luke wrote: “She’s not white, she’s not black, she’s not Chinese, she’s Hispanic.”

In his response, Luke may have confused Hispanic to be a race as opposed to an ethnicity, but he certainly drives home the point that you can’t judge a person’s background based on physical appearances alone.

Luke stars as Malcolm Deveaux in “Empire” on the FOX hip-hop drama. He is also known for his role in Denzel Washington’s directorial debut “Antwone Fisher” in 2002.

“My wife may not be Black but she is mine,” Luke wrote towards the end of his post. “And she’s mine with a heart of gold.”

H/T Fox News Latino

Also On HuffPost:

– This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.