For Victoria Rowell, “being down is part of life.” But what “really matters,” she says, is the strength to get back on your feet.
The 65-year-old winner of the NAACP Image Award and The Young and restless alum sat down with PEOPLE on Friday, May 31, to discuss her journey as a foster family and how it shaped the future of her acting career.
“Success looks like a lot of different things in a lot of different ways, but I attribute it to my mentors, my foster parents,” she said at the She Ready Foundation’s Night Under the Stars prom for adults in Los Angeles.
“In some cases, my friendships, my long-time childhood friendships, are really important. They’ve become my family, my friends,” she continued.
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As Rowell added, she found the strength to continue moving forward “every day” in her life.
“You’ve just got to get up. It’s okay to be down. Being down is part of life. Challenges, down players, that’s part of life, but having the guts to get back up is what really matters at the end of the day,” she explained.
“A lot of people don’t make it. A lot of people can’t come back, so I’m very grateful,” the star added.
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Victoria Rowell arrives at Tiffany Haddish’s ‘Adult Prom: A Night Under The Stars’ in Los Angeles on May 31, 2024.
Corine Solberg/Getty
Rowell, who previously spoke about her childhood journey in her 2007 bookThe women who raised metook home the Hero Award at the She Ready Foundation event, which fell on the last day of National Foster Care Month.
“Great night celebrating success in the foster community,” she wrote in an Instagram post after the event.
The adult prom, which took place at The Beehive in Los Angeles, had an ’80s theme. Host Tiffany Haddish described it as an event “for adults who never made it to prom.”
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Funds raised by the foundation this weekend will be set aside to “empower children and young adults through job skills programs, scholarships and resources, breaking generational cycles for life-changing travel,” according to She Ready’s website.
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Source: HIS Education