8 Black Celebrities Who Have Opened Up About Being Unhoused - Page 2

2. Halle Berry

In her early days as a struggling actress determined to make a name for herself in the entertainment industry, Halle Berry found herself without a place to live when she began her modeling career in New York.

“I mean three months later, I was out of my cash,” Berry said in a 2017 interview with PEOPLE. “I called my mother and asked her to send me some money, and she said no, and that subsequently led to a year of not speaking to her because I was so upset that she wouldn’t help me.”

“That’s probably one of the best things she did for me … She said, ‘If you want to be there, then you work it out.’ And I had to work it out,”she recalled. “Giving up was never an option.”

“It was prove to her and everybody else. I’m going to figure this out.’ And shelter life was part of figuring it out for a minute until I could get a waitressing job. Then I got a bartending job, and until I could figure that out, that’s what I did,” she told the outlet.