Viola Davis recounted her extreme poverty-stricken childhood on Friday during a speech at Variety's Power of Women event in Los Angeles.
The How to Get Away With Murder star, who has been nominated for two Academy Awards in her career, said she grew up in “abject poverty.”
"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. I have stolen for food. I have jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food,” she said in a moving speech, Us Weekly reports.
“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,” she continued.
Davis is now involved in the Hunger Is campaign, which helps raise awareness for hungry children in the U.S.
Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon and Jane Fonda also spoke at the event, Los Angeles Times reports, and they were among the honorees as well.
They each spoke about the causes dear to their heart - the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential for Fonda, the Malala Fund for Witherspoon and the Lopez Family Foundation for Lopez.
image via Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com
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