There are some Black celebrities out there, who have lifestyles that would state otherwise, but you wouldn’t believe that they were one of those celebrities who grew up in extreme poverty. Let’s put your knowledge of the glitterati to the test. Here are the most notable celebrities who grew in extreme poverty:

1.     Oprah Winfrey

We all know her as a successful businesswoman and media proprietor, but most of us don’t know that she spent about six years of her life in poverty. This was the time when Winfrey was living with her maternal grandmother. According to an interview from 2005, she stated that she had even made overalls from potato sacks. This led to her earning the nickname, Sack Girl. What’s more? Winfrey even claimed that she had cockroaches for pets and played with a doll made from a dried corn cob.

There is no doubt about the fact that this was her motivation to work for the welfare of others later in life.

2.     Sean Combs (Puff Diddy)

The entertainment magazines love reporting on the ridiculous party life of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, but most of us didn’t know that he had grown up in a public housing project with his mother in Harlem. His father, Melvin Combs, was a notorious drug dealer. His father was killed when he was three years old. Diddy grew up without a dad but carried his hustler spirit, resulting in a resulting music career and many successful businesses.

3.     Nicki Minaj

Minaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and raised in the most poverty-stricken areas of New York. In her interview back in 2012, she stated how she never wanted to experience what it was like to be poor. She said that once someone knows what it is like to be truly poor, they will always know the value of being driven. She said that her childhood was so crazy that she was brought to the point that she wanted to put her faith in whatever she wanted to do.

4.     Chris Gardner

Well, most people don’t know her name, but his story inspired the award-winning performance in The Pursuit of Happiness. This successful author had to actually spend a whole night in the bathroom of a train station so that he and his child had a place to stay for the night.

People like the four successful individuals mentioned here don’t have any regrets from their time in poverty. Their stories can be the biggest motivation for working hard to achieve our goals.

“Failures are divided into two classes — those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.” – John Charles Salak.

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