When Victoria was just 16 days old her and her two sisters Sheree and Lori were given away by their white birth mother, Dorothy Rowell, who has also had 3 sons by different fathers who bought them up, they were Norman, David and Keith. She never knew her father or anything about him except his last name is Wilson and he lives in Washington involved in the real-estate business.
She was then left to survive 5 foster homes, ending up on Lebanon, Maine with Robert and Agatha Armstead along with her two sisters. Whilst living here she started ballet at the age of 8 and after an audition she received a ford foundation scholarship to study at the Cambridge school of ballet. She also received scholarships to the School of American Ballet, The American Ballet Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She then became a ballet dancer at the age of 17.
Her Foster Mother passed away, aged 79 making Victoria feel very alone. She then did some modelling and teaching of performing arts before going into acting in New York.
She then married Tim Farley and her daughter, Maya.
Shortly after Maya's birth, she was asked to audition for the Young and the Restless and it was during that time she was going through a divorce with her ex-husband, Tim Farley. When she got there she could not find a baby-sitter and arrived at the audition with only minutes to spare, her bad mood and subsequent temper lead her to get the part of Drucilla.
Victoria won the NAACP image award as outstanding actress in daytime drama series in 1993 and 1994. Shortly afterwards she then set up her charity for children between 8 and 13, which allows 10 girls to attend ballet classes once a week and gives them something to look forward to in their lives, as she knew what this felt like. Her charity was called the Rowell Foster Children's Fine Arts Scholarship Fund.
Since then she has been maintaining a long distance relationship with jazz player Wynton Marsalis and he was the father of her second child Jasper who plays CJ in Diagnosis Murder.