Early Life
Patrice Malcolm Oneal was born in New York City, New York, on December 7, 1969, and grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Georgia, named him after Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the Congolese independence movement, and Malcolm X. He was raised by his mother and never met his father.
Oneal was a star football player at West Roxbury High School, ending his career with 3 letters in varsity football and a state championship his senior year. He turned down football scholarships in order to attend Northeastern University on a public housing grant, majoring in Performing Arts.
At the age of 17, Oneal was convicted of statutory rape of a 15 year old girl and sentenced to 60 days in prison, served during his summer break, so as not to disrupt his schooling. The act, which occurred when Oneal was still 16, would have been legal in most states, but Massachusetts lacks a close-in-age exception, and has an age of consent of 16. Oneal said his humor helped him to negotiate the harsh realities of prison.
Read more about this topic: Patrice O'Neal
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“For with this desire of physical beauty mingled itself early the fear of death—the fear of death intensified by the desire of beauty.”
—Walter Pater 1839–1894, British writer, educator. originally published in Macmillan’s Magazine (Aug. 1878)
“The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to appropriate it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)