Viola Davis, the star of the TV series How to Get Away with Murder from 2014 to 2020, didn’t get away without getting shingles. That’s not surprising since around one out of every three adults will end up getting the condition at some point in their lives. In fact, the now 61-year-old winner of the EGOT—meaning the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards—got shingles not just once but twice. And Davis recently told me what this nasty shingles sequel has taught her.

The First Appearance Of Shingles Was On Davis’s Abdomen

Davis described how she had just become a new mom, adopting her daughter, and been nominated for an Oscar for her leading role in the 2011 movie The Help . And was working. And working. And working.

Then one day she woke up with flu-like symptoms and a “extraordinarily painful rash that started on my stomach and wrapped around my back.” The extended on only one side of her body. And the pain was such that it would be hard for most people to stomach. “When I say pain, it was definitely a nine out of 10,” Davis recalled. “The nerve pain was just debilitating.” Yet, Davis didn’t let the pain completely debilitate her.

“I mustered through, I was still shooting movies. I was still getting up early and working out," Davis explained and added that she and her husband were also still raising their daughter. “I mustered through because I felt that that is what made me a strong woman.”

Eventually, the pain and rash subsided. “I said, ‘OK, it’s gone away,” Davis recalled. “’OK. So I’m better.’” Davis went through with me the different things that she thought at the time it could have been, ranging from the weight belt that she wears in the gym irritating her skin to a spider bite to the flu.

The Shingles Rash Came Back, This Time On Davis’s Upper Back

But eventually the painful rash came back—both literally and figuratively. This time it came back to her upper back—again on just one side of the body. She only found out that it was shingles “through a co-star I had” who told her, “’Viola, that’s shingles.’”

Yes, voilà, she had shingles, which results from the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus—you know the virus that causes chicken pox, as I’ve described in Forbes . When you recover from having chickenpox , you could say that this virus has some nerve. It can go to yo ur nerves where it can hide out and lay dormant for years. It’s a bit like how the Enchantress lay dormant in the character June Moone in the 2016 movie Suicide Squad , in which Davis played the part of Amanda Waller.

But the older you get, especially after you’ve past the 50 year mark, the greater the chances that this virus will reactivate to produce shingles. Stress and a weakened immune system can further increase the risk of reactivation. And once reactivated, the virus can cause the painful, burning, tingling, super-sensitive and itchy rash in the area supplied by the nerve, accompanied by flu-like symptoms. After a few days, small, fluid-filled blisters form in the rash. It typically takes two to four weeks for the blisters or vesicles to break open, crust over, scab and heal. But sometimes the pain can continue indefinitely in what’s called post-herpetic neuralgia.

And as Davis learned, just because you get shingles once doesn’t mean that it can’t happen again. And again, And again.

“I have to be honest, I didn’t know anything about shingles,” Davis admitted. “But the reason why it’s important to know that is that I didn’t prioritize me. I counted myself out.” She continued by saying, “It’s interesting that that is the card we use as women, oftentimes in order to be perceived as valuable.”

The Shingles Experience Was A Wake Up Call For Davis

The shingles experience was a strong lesson for someone who prided herself in being strong. “At the time, listen, I ate right, I worked out, I felt like I was mentally strong,” she explained. “I’m someone who’s known for that for being mentally strong, surviving an extremely difficult childhood. I had a mom who had six kids at home, on the plantation, no anesthesia. That’s my inheritance.”

But then came the more than shing-ular experience. “That was my wake up call once I got shingles that, 'Viola, you’re not so strong that you’re infallible, that you’re invincible,” Davis related. “And being vulnerable and taking care of your health and prioritizing yourself does not make you weak.” This prompted her to go to the doctor more because before, “I didn’t even want to bother a doctor, not understanding that the doctor is there to work for me.”

Davis, of course, now has a much better understanding about what shingles is explaining, “To me [previously], it was the equivalent of having a cold." She joked that “Maybe the word shingles made me think of jingles, jingle bells, whatever, it’s not serious. So I dismissed it.” But actually that viewpoint has changed to the point that Davis is partnering with GSK for its “ Shingles, actually ” campaign to bring more awareness about the condition.

Filming The Woman King Also Changed Davis’s View Of Health

Another pivotal moment in Davis’s view of health came in 2021 to 2022. “When I shot a movie called The Woman King, I had to train for five hours a day for three to four months,” she recalled. “I was lifting weights that you could not imagine running on the treadmill at 10.0 and doing hand to hand combat, trying to take down 10 dudes at a time. And I was 57 at the time. And I thought to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, I am gonna die.”

But along the way, in Davis’s words, “what happened was my body started to transform, but more importantly, the thing that I was so proud of with The Woman King is that my body was capable. It was strong.”

That was when she had her “A-ha moment that my body is not just for decoration. My body is to serve my strength and my life. And that’s how we have to see it." She continued by saying, "So when anything is wrong in this beautifully built machine, you’re worthy of finding people who are good, who are gonna maintain it.”

And Davis continued to maintain a busy schedule. “I have a movie coming out in January, Children of Blood and Bone based on Tomi Adeyemi’s New York Times bestseller’s book,” said Davis. She also mentioned just shooting another movie Ally Clark for Amazon MGM Studios and “My husband and I created a foundation, the Davis-Tennon Foundation , that’s gonna service the people in Central Falls, Rhode Island, my hometown, people who are fully capable, who just need support. It’s my way of giving back to little Viola.” The foundation will address issues such as “women who are going through domestic violence, food insecurity, housing, insecurity.”

So you could say that the painful shingles rashes have made Davis less rash about her body and her health. She now knows better about what her body can do for her and how you can’t get away with not fully maintaining it.