Lets take a few minutes out of a Paul Venomous shoot and get to know Melissa Night.

Melissa hasn’t had the easiest life, in fact, she has seen her fair share of trials, tribulations and straight up hard times. She has struggled through a lot of her life and to some extent still struggles, but don’t we all?

Melissa comes from a mixed heritage including Maltese, First Nations and French; her story like most has two sides. On the one side you have a very compassionate, caring, down to earth all around sweet girl that adores animals, nature and beauty and loves to help others. The flip side to that coin is the edgy, goth styled tomboy. Melissa spent the majority of her younger years being the tomboy, hanging out with the guys playing sports, riding her bike, wearing baggy jeans and t-shirts fascinated by sports cars. If it was pink, frilly or had flowers on it, you wouldn’t catch Melissa anywhere near it. Going through school while everyone else was choosing instruments like flute or clarinet Melissa sought out lessons to learn how to play the drums! “I’m obsessed with horror movies, Halloween and Vampires. I also collect creepy looking things like skulls and zombie baby dolls.”

Melissa has a younger sister and brother, they all have different fathers, and they were all put into foster care at very young ages because there mother wasn’t able to take care of them. Melissa’s mother suffered from an out of control drug and alcohol addiction. Melissa and her siblings moved from foster home to foster home as young children and eventually were separated. Melissa ended up living with her father who managed to obtain custody of her. They had very little money and lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment; Melissa slept in the bedroom on a mattress while her father claimed the couch. Melissa’s father struggled to provide for her while he tried to cope with failing health and unstable work. The kids at school made fun of her due to her social economic situation, and treated her, like an outsider. Walking home from school as a young child Melissa would make sure no one was following her so that they could not see where she lived. As time went on their struggle only grew until eventually her father couldn’t afford to buy her bus tickets to get to one of her schools anymore.

Melissa grew up with dreams and aspirations for herself, wanting a better life; she had a desire to become a model, a photographer, an artist she wanted to do so many things with her life. She would look at the models on the covers of the magazines and dream that that one day would be here and that all the kids who were treating her bad now would become envious of what she had achieved in life. Melissa knew that this was something she could strive for and achieve.

At a young age she would start working two jobs, mostly factory and labor type jobs which seemed to fit with the tomboy persona she had going on. She would come home from work, scratched, bruised and covered in dirt just to prove that she could do anything that any boy could, including lifting heavy boxes. Melissa was getting noticed, she was told on more than one occasion that she was a better worker then most of the guys she worked with and even told she used a nail gun like a pro! Melissa was working on assembly lines, driving fork lifts, building crates, if it was hard work, she lined up for the chance to do it.

That was the beginning, Melissa was making her own money, she even saved up and bought a car; but she soon remembered those dreams of becoming a model and knew it was time to make some changes. She quit the factory job, took a bartending course, and started to work as a bartender saving up money whenever she could to get her modeling portfolio started. Melissa began to embrace her feminine side (though she still keeps that tomboy and edgy side to her that peeks through when she does photo shoots) as she started working with photographers building a professional glamour and swimwear portfolio.

With a fairly successful start to her modeling portfolio and her career underway, Melissa is now taking time to start practicing and learning some photography skills behind the camera and working on her art. Melissa has also been toying with the idea of writing a book about her life, and is in the beginning stages of that project.

“I am not afraid of being myself and who I am, I’m confident in myself and could care less what other people think. I just keep working hard to achieve my goals and dreams” Melissa told Paul Venomous during her interview. “Even though you may have had a really hard start at life and not equally the same as most people may have, that doesn’t mean that you cannot have the life that you want for yourself.” Melissa continues “You can be happy in life, the trick is not to give up just because you may have been dealt a shit hand in life. You can achieve anything you want if you work towards it … remember; you’re the only one stopping yourself from achieving your goals”.