The words of wisdom that Viola Davis shares with her teenage daughter are great advice for women, too

EGOT winner Viola Davis reflects on her journey to success and self-esteem, and the way she empowers her 13-year-old daughter, Genesis.

There are only 19 EGOTs (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award winners) on the planet, but for Viola Davis, these coveted wins were the manifestation of a dream that she believed was born out of probability.

“When you grow up in certain circumstances, you don’t see yourself anymore. And that’s why you dream big, because it’s almost like you force yourself to believe that something can happen,” Davis said. Peopleas one of several stars who helped the magazine celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The 52-year-old actress and producer is still a long way from the deeply impoverished and abusive Rhode Island upbringing she chronicled in her best-selling 2022 memoir, “Finding Me.” (Davis’ narration of her memoir inadvertently cemented her EGOT status, winning her a 2023 Grammy Award for Best Audiobook Recording, Narration and Storytelling). Although she currently lives a very stable and lofty lifestyle with her husband Julius Tennon and their 13-year-old daughter, Genesis, Davis’s journey to fame was not a dream she thought would come true.

“I never imagined I’d get a leading role like (complicated ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ character) Annalize Keating,” said Davis, who also appeared on the Shonda Rhimes-produced hit series “Suicide Squad.” “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, Viola, this can really happen to people like you.’ Because I had already made the decision that the industry had left its mark on me. I understand that people on the outside say, “You can’t sell yourself short.” You are beautiful, Viola. You are all these things. … (But) I never knew my career could turn out this way.”

Reflecting on her 2017 Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for “Fences,” Davis described a “full circle” moment when she shared her mother’s triumph that night, even before she won. “It was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. This Viola, you dreamed of the largest dream in your life and also you managed to make it come true,” she recalls. “And my mother… I remember her crying because I think she felt the same way I felt: a little country girl from St. Matthews, South Carolina – that she gave birth to me and gave birth to this.”

Now Davis is channeling that same winning energy into Genesis. While her daughter, whom she and Tennon adopted as an infant in 2011, is growing up in a very different environment than her own, Davis insists that she is instilling a strong sense of self-worth in her only child.

“I feel the same way about Genesis that I feel about myself when I look back at myself when (I was) younger,” Davis said during an appearance on “TODAY with Hoda & Jenna” in 2022, as theGrio previously reported. “I feel it is a great opportunity to grow and even find out about myself because I actually have to offer her affirmations – I do that daily.”

Raising a now-adolescent daughter means those affirmations have turn into much more urgent and essential, as Davis explains within the celebratory issue of People.

“What I tell my daughter now is: ‘Genesis, you are the love of your life.’ You need to start now to have a radical love affair with yourself, to be in touch with your inner voice, what you like, what you don’t like, what crosses boundaries and you will respect it. And thanks to this, it is the seed from which everything grows. ”

Davis admits that she has worked hard to learn these lessons in her life because she was forced to learn them herself. And her advice is probably useful for women of all ages.

“Nobody ever told me I was the love of my life,” she continued. “I just miscalculated. If I have to be small to build a relationship, I will become small. If I have to sacrifice my needs for others – this is important for women. We are believed to be stronger when we sacrifice our needs. I said, “Genesis, no, don’t do that. You are the love of your life, you and only you.”

!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||(),g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){ g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(“has-featured-video”,”true”)})}();var _bp=_bp||();_bp.push({“div”:”Brid_21904″, “obj”:{“id”:”41122″,”width”:”1280″,”height”:”720″,”stickyDirection”:”below”,”playlist”:”21904″,”slide_inposition”:” .widget_tpd_ad_widget_sticky”}});

Featured Stories

The post The wisdom Viola Davis shares with her teenage daughter is great advice for women also appeared first on TheGrio.