Hollywood star Viola Davis opened up about her life. Growing up in poverty, the Oscar and Emmy-winning actress who is 56 years old said, “People are constantly asking, ‘So how did you get from Central Falls, R.I.? Oh, you grew up poor? Really?’ And then you start your story. And you’d say it again and again.” PEOPLE magazine did a cover story on Viola Davis. Her parents struggled to earn a living, Davis’s family lived in a deteriorated and uninhabitable building which was plagued by rats and garbage with full of insects. She recalled that she reeked of urine in school as she used to wet the bed and her parents cannot afford clean laundry, Viola Davis was bullied by kids and attacked for being Black.
Viola Davis’s father was abusive and an alcoholic who used to beat her mother and she as well as her sisters endured sexual abuse, telling, “I count it all as joy. I do. All of those things happened to me, but I own it. And it’s a part of who I am. Everything I’ve experienced is what connects to the world. It’s given me an extraordinary sense of compassion. It’s reconciling that young girl in me and healing from the past — and finding a home.” Viola David wrote a memoir titled “Finding Me”, it gives a deep look into her life as how she made it in her life. Married to actor Julius Tennon and having a daughter named Genesis, she acknowledged that she went through a major existential crisis before writing her memoir.
Explaining, “I always thought acting defined my life, and it doesn’t. What people in the world tell you is that if you find that thing that you do, that you are great at, then that’s it. And you have money in the bank, and you have a house, and you have a cute husband, and he loves you and your kid, that’s it. And it’s not. I was still hiding a huge part of my story. It’s almost like I reinvented all the things that I wanted to and tossed away the rest of it. You know when you look at pictures down memory lane, and you see it differently. I’m looking at little Viola, and I see how strong she was and how she was just a spitfire. I think that’s why I wrote the book, that if I somehow explored it, unpacked those memories, resolving them, that somehow I could find my peace.”
Viola Davis will be seen starring in a show called “The First Lady”, as for her memoir “Finding Me” will be releasing on 26th April.