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Viola Davis Talks About Growing Up In Poverty

We all know Viola Davis as the no-nonsense lawyer Annalise Keating on “How To Get Away With Murder,” but the actress recently showed her vulnerable side as she talked about growing up in poverty. Viola has admitted before that she grew up poor, but she gave more detail about her upbringing during her acceptance speech at Variety’s “Power Of Women” luncheon. She, along with Resse Witherspoon and Jennifer Lopez, were honored for their humanitarian efforts.

“I was one of the 17 million kids in this country who didn’t know where the next meal was coming from and I did everything to get food,” Viola said. “I’ve stolen the food, I’ve jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food, I have befriended people in the neighborhood who I knew had mothers who cooked three meals a day for food and I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame.”

Viola works with “Hunger Is,” a campaign that builds awareness about hunger and poverty in the U.S. and said that she joined it to save herself. “I didn’t join the Hunger Is campaign to save the world. I didn’t,” she said. “I set out to save myself. You know, they say that you’re never too old to have a happy childhood and although my childhood was filled with many happy memories it was also spent in abject poverty.”

See Viola’s powerful speech above.

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AM BUZZ: Viola Davis Jumped Garbage Bins For Food As A Child; Tamar Clears Up Traci Beef & More  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com

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