Viola Davis opens up about a childhood of bullying and trauma in her forthcoming memoir.
Finding Me, released on 26 April, details how the How to Get Away with Murder star grew up in a dilapidated, rat-infested building and had to sift through bins for food.
“People are constantly asking, ‘So how did you get from Central Falls, Rhode Island? Oh, you grew up poor? Really?’ And then you start your story,” Davis said in an interview with People. “And you’d say it again and again.”
The Tony, Oscar and Emmy award winner admitted that she had “an enormous existential crisis” before deciding to write her memoir.
“I was still hiding a huge part of my story. It’s almost like I reinvented all of the things that I wanted to and tossed away the rest of it,” she said.
The memoir also details how Davis was incessantly bullied by boys who would throw rocks at her for being Black, and the abuse she, her sisters and mother experienced at the hands of her alcoholic father.
“Everything I’ve experienced is what connects me to the world. It’s given me an extraordinary sense of compassion,” Davis said. “It’s reconciling that young girl in me and healing from the past — and finding a home.
“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,” Davis said.
She added: “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.”
Finding Me will be released on 26 April
