IT ALL STARTED when Angela was born in Dec. (She is a Sagittarius) Angela Shelton grew up in the South in a trailer with her mom and dad. Angela's mother adamantly refused to work so she could stay at home with Angela for the first 3 years. Angela claims that this is the reason she is sane today. When Angela was 3 her father decided to leave her mother for her mother's best friend. Angela went to live with her father and his new wife who had 2 kids because her dad and his new family were the "perfect American family" including a picket fence. Both sides of the family, and even her mother's attorney thought Angela was better off with her dad - he went to church and was so well liked, handsome and charming! Angela was sexually and physically abused, along with her step-siblings, by her father for 5 years until being removed from the home by social services and placed into a foster home. (This is all in Angela's book Finding Angela Shelton by the way)
ANGELA'S MOTHER GOT CUSTODY again of Angela when Angela was 8 and built her a kitchen by remodeling half of the kitchen to make it the right size for a child! Thus began Angela's love for hosting, cooking, and all things culinary. Angela's mother got married again and they moved to South Carolina where Angela enrolled in a new school and learned about the realities of cliches. Angela's mom and her new step dad did not have the funds to outfit her in the latest fashion so Angela became adept at being creative with Goodwill and thrift stores. Her mother encouraged Angela to express herself through writing and performing. Angela became a mime too at the age of 8 and performed at the local mall. Angela's number one love was writing and she went on to win many writing awards. Her dream was to go to New York City where she felt that she would meet like-minded people. When a school field trip came up to the Big Apple Angela was walking on cloud nine until she found out it was going to cost far too much to go. There was no way that her family could pay for it so Angela collected cans along the roadside to raise the money to get to New York. She made it on the school bus trip and swore that one day she would live in the big city.
ANGELA HEADED TO CALIFORNIA instead when her mother decided to leave her fourth husband and go all the way across the country. Angela's mother had her mind set on Arizona for the air quality since Angela had asthma. Angela urged her mother to keep going all the way to the coast and that's exactly what they did. (that is what Angela's first movie Tumbleweeds is about )
ANGELA STARTED MODELING at the age of 14 after her mother got her astrology chart done in California and it revealed that modeling would be lucrative. Angela's mother got married for the fifth time and they all moved from Southern California to Los Angelas where Angela got her first agent, Nina Blanchard. Angela began getting modeling work and was presented an opportunity to New York when she met a modeling scout from an agency in New York City. Angela's dream of living in New York City was finally going to come true. 
With little money and big dreams, Angela took the offer and moved to the Big Apple! She lived in the model's apartment for three weeks before wanting to pull her hair out. Angela began working consistently with Bill Blass and very quickly was able to get her own apartment and make a living in New York. Her mother ended up moving to Seattle with her fifth husband while Angela became a big city girl. Angela moved to Paris for a year when she was 19 and began writing a book about her and her mother called, "Tumbleweeds."
ANGELA BEGAN ACTING professionally when she came back in New York City after living abroad. She booked the lead role in Gavin O'Connor's first film "Comfortably Numb" when she was 21. She let Gavin read her book and he insisted they make a movie about it. 
After they finished "Comfortably Numb," she and Gavin began writing the screenplay based on her life and book about her mother. "Tumbleweeds" won the 2000 Sundance filmmaker's award and got the lead actress, Janet McTeer, a Golden Globe win and an Academy Aw
ard nomination.
ANGELA BEGAN WRITING SCREENPLAYS in Hollywood after writing "Tumbleweeds." Angela received outstanding reviews for her adaptation of Kaye Gibbon's novel "Charms for the Easy Life," a Showtime movie starring Gena Rowlands and Mimi Rogers. Angela then wrote two TV pilots and four more screenplays, one of which was a comedy called FAKE that she is directing.
THEN THE WRITER'S STRIKE became a threat in 2001. In order to prepare herself for a pending Writer's Strike, Angela began a documentary called Searching for Angela Shelton. Her plan was to survey women in America to see how they were doing. Her broad questions were, "Who are you, where have you been, and where are you going?"
As she began interviewing other Angela Sheltons nationwide, Angela was shocked when 70% of them shared intimate stories about being victims of rape, childhood sexual assault and/or domestic violence. When the filmmaker Angela Shelton met an Angela Shelton who was tracking sexual predators and lived in the same town as the filmmaker Angela Shelton's own pedophile father, the journey became very personal.
ANGELA SHELTON WAS DISCOVERED by people all over the world as she was putting her movie together and sharing bits of it with the world. People started spreading the message word-of-mouth and on the Internet. Before long, Angela had a mailing list, a forum, a website and a following before she was even done with her film. The producers of the Oprah Winfrey Show found her and invited her on to talk about her film.
ANGELA SHELTON BECAME A SUPERHERO FOR SURVIVORS when she finished her film and began showing it all over the world at her speaking engagements and selling a limited edition of her DVD. Angela is so open and honest about her own past, her pathway to recovery, and the ups and downs of becoming a whole person that people are drawn to her. She began sharing more of herself and started the Survivor Manual to share healing techniques and ways out of the box of pain and suffering. Angela became a highly sought-after speaker. Her past of being in front of the camera and on stage lent itself to her being comfortable enough to stand before crowds of people and help break the silence about a very taboo subject of child sexual abuse that affects one in every four girls and one in every six boys in America.
ANGELA SHELTON BECAME A SUPERHERO for kids when she booked the role of Safe Side Superchick in The Safe Side series created by Baby Einstein creator, Julie Clark, and Americas Most Wanted creator, John Walsh.
ANGELA'S ARMY OF ANGELS is formed and keeps growing. A group of women worldwide who have discovered Angela Shelton and been inspired by her to change their lives, heal, and break the cycle of abuse and trauma - have dedicated themselves to continuing Angela's message. "The only way we are going to end the abuse epidemic," Angela says, "is to first break the silence. Then we break the cycle." Inspired and empowered by her words and actions, The Army of Angels inspire and empower themselves and others to move out of the patterns of abuse and lead joyful lives, They are running campaigns with Angela's message, writing books, songs, performing, speaking, lecturing, and being amazing examples of thriving in the world.
ANGELA SHELTON DAY - APRIL 29, 2008 was presented to Angela by the mayor of her hometown of Asheville, NC. The campaign REPORT IT on ANGELA SHELTON DAY began when Angela suggested to her friend and victim's advocate lawyer, Wendy Murphy, that if everyone reported abuse on the same day perhaps the world would pay attention. Wendy took the campaign to Angela Rose from PAVE: Promoting Awareness; Victim Empowerment and Angela created it into a nationwide yearly campaign.
ANGELA SHELTON WROTE A BOOK due to the huge amounts of requests that she do so. People who follow her film were more interested in finding out the details of Angela's life and wanted to know more about how she had survived her past. Angela wrote the book as a gift to everyone who has ever been through pain and suffering. Angela wrote her book Finding Angela Shelton due to the amazing following of her film and how it changed her whole life. She became an expert in trauma and recovery while traveling with her film. She now works on projects to inspire and empower people to live joyful lives and break the cycle of pain and suffering.
THE JOY CAMPAIGN was created by the Army of Angels as a way to get FINDING ANGELA SHELTON into the hands of as many people as possible and ignite a dramatic shift in society by inspiring a wave of healing and awakening out of trauma.
STIRRING UP TROUBLE WITH ANGELA SHELTON is Angela's latest project. It is an Un-censored online cooking show with a splash of comedy and a handful of reality. Angela is bold, brave, feisty, and funny as she shows you (and her friends) how to save money, stretch meals, have better love lives, live green, and make the world a better place because you're in it! Find out more about what Angela is up to by signing up for her mailing lists. All updates are from her personally.
Angela is also a regular on Comedy Nation and the Free Speech Show.
Bring Angela Shelton to your community!
To book Angela for a speaking event, workshop, or performance - call her mother Joann at 1-800-343-7685 or
events@angelashelton.com Check out more about Joann below.
For private consulting and mentoring contact margaret@angelashelton.com Private consulting is by referral only.
