LOS ANGELES – Walking behind Alyssa Milano as she’s about to greet her fans at a book signing at the Grove requires speed and agility.
The actress-turned activist swiftly navigates the aisle of books before welcoming hundreds of her followers.
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“I’m blessed to still have a career which is lovely and my activism, you know, there’s a lot of issues to fight for right now," Milano told Spectrum News 1.
Known for her roles on Who’s the Boss? and Charmed, it’s her latest role as an author that has Milano filled with hope.
Her new book, Hope Project Middle School, about an 11-year-old and her two rescue dogs, encourages kids to use their voices for good.
“Kids have this innate way of caring about everything and about their friends and about the environment and somehow along the way they lose that sensibility,” Milano said. “This is really a book trying to celebrate the seeds that are already planted in a child of wanting to do good and wanting to help.”
It’s been a busy few years for Milano. She’s currently starting in Insatiable on Netflix, she’s got a new podcast, and for the 2020 election, Milano plans to raise $2 million to boost voter turnout.
But she still has no idea who’ll she’ll vote for. At least not yet.
“It changes every day,” she said. “Last week I interviewed Andrew Yang on my podcast and obsessed with him. I was an early supporter of Bernie [Sanders] in 2016. I look at Joe Biden and I think, there’s a guy with a lot of experience. Elizabeth Warren is so incredible to watch. So, I love them all.”
But perhaps her visible activism to date is a tweet she sent in the midst of the Harvey Weinstein firestorm, which literally defined the #MeToo era.
“If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet,” she wrote on October 15, 2017.
“I sent that tweet in this place of sadness for my kid and woke up seven hours later to 30,000 replies," she said.
On the two-year anniversary of that tweet, Milano revealed for the first time that she was sexually assaulted on a movie set 25 years ago.
“I was and I am diving into that experience and trying to heal myself. And so in support and solidarity of the women who have come forward, I just felt like it was the right time.”
After being named one of “The Silence Breakers,” Time’s collective Person of the Year, Milano's activism went into high gear.
“I’m very optimistic," she said. "I have hope, truly."