Just a few short years ago, Athena Angelou was homeless, living out of her car with a toddler. Thinking back on that rough time in her life instantly brings a tear to the eyes of the Flava radio star.
“I was a teen mum and ran away from home,” recalls the now 28-year-old. “I ended up homeless and then I was on the dole. Just before I started working for Flava, I was working in a smoke store as the manager selling blunt wraps, cigarettes and shishas.
“My parents were kind of disappointed because they had always wanted more for me.”
The tears start to fall when Athena recalls a specific moment of desperation, sleeping in her car in a park one night with her son Silas, who is now 11.
“I looked at my two-yearold and thought, ‘This isn’t my life, this isn’t my story.’ I screamed at God and said if he could give me the opportunity, open that one door, I wouldn’t let him down.”
Her period of homelessness came to an end, but before finding success on the airwaves, Athena went through countless ups and downs trying to find the right path.
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