Angela Featherstone — who had memorable roles on "Friends" and "Seinfeld" — is opening up about her painful upbringing, during which she was "trafficked" and "raped all the time."
In a chat with Yahoo Life, the actress — who played Chloe, the "hot girl from the Xerox place" on "Friends" — said, "I would characterize the first 16 years of my life to be abusive physically, emotionally, psychologically and, in the end, sexually abusive. At the very least, there was criminal neglect on a consistent basis, and lots of abandonment."
Angela recalled being put into the foster care system in Canada when she was 16 years old. She ran away several times because she didn't feel safe, she said. Sadly, things only got wore when she started living on the streets.
"I was being trafficked, I was just being raped all the time. I wasn't getting any money and I wasn't standing on any street corner. It was different than what I had imagined in my head of what it was," she said. "I had not sensed that it could be so subtle, as it could happen to you and you don't even realize it's happening to you."
She was even arrested for prostitution when she was 17.
After a judge emancipated her, Angela borrowed some money and left Nova Scotia for Toronto, where she became an in-demand model. Eventually, she moved to New York City to pursue her modeling career.
Still — despite booking roles in films like "Con Air" and "The Wedding Singer" — Angela struggled and ended up back on the streets.
"I was at the peak of my career as an actress, and a couple of really difficult instances happened at work, and I did not have the infrastructure to handle them. When they happened, I just collapsed and sought the comfort in homelessness," she said. "I became homeless. I literally threw all my money away on anybody who would take it. I just wanted to start from ground zero again."
Angela, who played Jerry's love interest and maid on "Seinfeld," now focuses mostly on her Fostering Care nonprofit, which helps older children who are aging out of foster care.
"I just see this image of foster care being like those holding pens for the cattle before they get slaughtered: The slaughtering is basically turning 18 in the state of California," she said. "The foster-care-to-pedophile pipeline is alive and well."