Viola Davis Supports Survivor Friend
- Best friend to Davis, Michelle O’Neill, beat breast cancer and lives in Minnesota with her family.
- Davis credits O’Neill with always being there for her during tough moments.
- The Academy Award-winning actress helped renovated her dear friend’s home to bring her smiles and joy.
Viola Davis was just a young acting student at Julliard in New York City, when she met Michelle O'Neill over 30 years ago, who became one of her best friends and is a breast cancer survivor. (Davis was also friends with the late Chadwick Boseman, who died this year after a 4-year battle with colon cancer.)
Read MoreSupport of Friends is Imperative
As a gift to her dear friend, Davis gave her fellow actress the generous present of a home renovation to lift her spirits. "Property Brothers" Drew and Jonathan Scott assisted Davis in the planning, and the renovation work to them all to Minneapolis, where O'Neill lives. The work was featured on an episode of HGTV’s Celebrity IOU.
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Priorities were assessed when designing the renovation. The breast cancer survivor values time with her family above all else. "The most important thing with Michelle is family connection," Davis said "For instance, her and her daughters cuddle together and they do art projects together so everything is about gathering family, and she’s a terrific cook. So everything is about connection.”
Treatment Sequence for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
With that in mind, together with the Property Brothers, Davis opened up the kitchen to create a wide place for her and her daughters to gather while preparing meals, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTmVd1i9Tfg
O'Neill was emotional as she saw the renovation, and Davis, who has said that O'Neill was often her shoulder to cry on during rough patches was able to lend her own shoulder, this time. “This is for you,” Davis said to her teary friend. “This is something for you, because I never think you do enough for yourself.”
Davis is no stranger to lifting up her friends in their homes, or at award show after-parties.
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“I feel incredibly lucky that I have someone in my life like that,” O’Neill said of her friendship with Davis. Supportive friendships make a cancer journey much easier to bear, and O'Neill and Davis are proof of the beauty found in a decades-lasting friendship.
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