Former beauty queen reveals double life as a homeless youth and Miss Colorado, USA

The former beauty queen finally decided to talk about her situation in hopes of helping others.

Griffith was a homeless youth. “It’s really hard to have these thoughts that you can’t provide for yourself these basic needs… I was embarrassed to let anyone know what was going on,” she told The Huffington Post.

She grew up in a nice house in an affluent neighborhood, but when her father died from  prostate cancer when she was 15 everything changed.

Her mother soon after had a heart attack and when her insurance would not cover medication costs, Griffith’s mom had to shell out more than $500 a week for her medication. It wasn’t long before the family couldn’t pay the rent, and were evicted.

“I was in my early 20s, and this actually happened right after I had won the title of Miss Colorado USA back in 2011, so it was really, really hard to be sort of living this double life of being this beauty queen where everything had to seem perfect on the outside, but inside going home — or not going home — at night, wondering, ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight?’ or ‘What am I going to do next?'” said Griffith.

Now Griffith is going across the country talking about her experience in hopes to spread light on the problem of homelessness and youth homelessness and to remove the stigma associated with it.

Griffith is now working with Start From Here, a campaign to end youth homelessness.