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American actress Viola Davis opened up about her childhood racial abuse in an intimate conversation with Oprah Winfrey that was recently featured on Netflix.
Speaking ahead of the release of her book memoir Finding Me, the award-winning actress stated that the racial abuse she received on her way home from school was "the memory that defined me."
Davis, who grew up in Central Falls, Rhode Island, also spoke of the poverty and cruelty she endured as a youngster.
Viola Davis opens up to Oprah Winfrey about her racially-abusive childhood
The actress, well known for her parts in Suicide Squad and Widows, told Winfrey she remembered being eight years old and waiting for the dismissal bell to sound, indicating the start of her race home.
Viola Davis stated that she would flee the school as quickly as she could while being pursued by a group of youngsters who would hit her with rocks and sticks while chanting racial remarks. She explained to Winfrey:
“I’d run over people."
Davis also referred to herself as a tough child, recalling an incident in which she defended herself with a crochet needle. She did, however, admit how her early encounters with "vitriol" influenced the remainder of her life. She said:
“I never stopped running. My feet just stopped moving.”
Winfrey's sit-down with Davis took place on the lanai of her Maui home, in contrast to her recent high-profile interviews with Adele, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, both of which were taped in Santa Barbara County, California.
Viola Davis reveals the reason behind writing her new book
Davis also cited the pandemic as a motivation for writing her memoir, noting that her search for meaning was "exacerbated" by the solitude she felt in recent years.
She told Winfrey that she expected her career's prominence to bring her joy and calm, "sort of like Cinderella when Prince Charming comes in."
"And that didn’t happen. What happened was excitement at first and then the feeling of exhaustion. The feeling of, really, impostors in my life in terms of friendships. People overstepping their boundaries. People feeling like I was a commodity. Pressure – the pressure of unseen responsibility."
Viola Davis further added that she knew that things were not adding up.
“All I know is it wasn’t it. Then the question is, so Viola, what is it? What is it? What’s home to you and how do you get at it? And I didn’t know the answer to that. The only thing I could think to do was to go back to the beginning of my story.”
Finding Me, which will be released by HarperOne in the United States on April 26, was also selected as Oprah Winfrey's latest Book Club selection.
