Michelle Rodriguez Recalls Being 'Ripped Away' from Mom and Placed in Foster Care at 6: 'Very Scary'

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Michelle Rodriguez is recalling a "very scary experience" from her childhood.

At the 2022 A Sense of Home Gala in Beverly Hills on Thursday, organized by the nonprofit charity of the same name, Rodriguez, 44, revealed she spent three years in foster care as a child. She honored author Regina Louise for her work advocating for children in the foster care system.

"I was about 6 years old, San Antonio, and I remember being ripped away from my mother and being put in the system. And that s--- is scary, excuse my language," the Fast & Furious actress said.

"It's a very scary experience to lose your sense of home. I was lucky enough to be reunited with my family three years later, but I'll never forget what it's like to not feel like you belong," Rodriguez continued.

"It's a very powerful and dark place that you can fall into," she added. "And love is something that's so important for every human to experience in their life, and I'm just happy to be here to support such a cause because I think what you're doing is great."

RELATED: Tiffany Haddish Recalls Growing Up in Foster Care: 'I Thought I Was Going to Die There'

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During Rodriguez's speech, the actress showed a trailer for the 2019 Lifetime movie I Am Somebody's Child: The Regina Louise Story, about the author's real-life childhood in the foster care system and social worker Jeanne Kerr's unsuccessful attempt to adopt Louise.

Rodriguez went on to explain the author spent time in "30 different homes after that experience of being not allowed to be fostered by this wonderful woman that wanted to take care of her and show her love."

"They kept everything from her, even letters that [the would-be] adoptive mother wrote to her. I just don't understand how people could be so mean," Rodriguez said, before telling Louise, "Dude, you are a force."

"Regina left foster care on her own at 18," Rodriguez said. "And by herself without anyone to turn to, she found employment and she educated herself, and she never stopped searching for the social worker who wanted to adopt her."

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"We're so proud to honor Regina tonight and for her long, brave struggle against all odds and finding her way to this, to a sense of home," the actress said of the author. "We honor Regina for being an inspiring woman to defy the system that sought to break her."

Back in 2015, Rodriguez opened up to Interview magazine about growing up in Texas then the Dominican Republic and Jersey City, and how she was "scarred" by being raised Jehovah's Witness. She said it was "like living a double life" going to church and school.

"I spent the beginning of my life in Texas, and then my parents got divorced and I went to the Dominican Republic, learned Spanish, forgot every word of English I knew, and then, when I was about 11, 12, we moved to Jersey City," she said at the time. "Everywhere I go I'm an outsider."

She added, "The way I survived growing up in Jersey City was by being funny. It wasn't by being tough."