When Auti Angel and I meet for this interview, it is via Zoom, and she instantly reminds me of a character out of a futuristic superhero movie. She wears a sleek black blouse, and her hair is fire red. I get the impression that she might be going out clubbing after our talk, but she assures me it is all for her Instagram appearance later that evening.

A review of her Instagram account shows her offering online hip-hop dance classes, appearing in a music video for Demi Lovato, photos of her posing with mega-stars like Snoop Dogg and references to the critically-acclaimed reality show she’s best-known for, Push Girls.

Like many celebrities today, she is continually developing her craft.

Born to Dance

It was always Angel’s plan to be in show business, but as with so many of her contemporaries, her path was filled with unexpected potholes and valleys. She was born in San Diego and grew up in Torrance, California. She came from a family that, although not without its flaws, was loving and stable. Her mother was English and her father was Peruvian and Mexican. He was a huge follower of Bruce Lee and instilled that “always be a fighter” sensibility in his daughters.

Angel had a flair for dance as far back as she can recall, doing salsa at 2 years old. When she was around 6, she saw a beloved uncle dancing vivaciously to disco singer Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel,” and that was when she knew dancing was her passion — and she pursued her profession with vigor. “There was no plan B,” she says.

Although her family was loving, they couldn’t protect her from harm. “I was very insecure as a young girl, going through child abuse,” she told HuffPost’s Elizabeth Kuster in 2012. “Physically and sexually.” When Kuster expressed sympathy, Angel assured her that, “It’s OK! That’s what made me who I am today. Had my life been so peachy keen, I would not have learned how to fight through all of my obstacles — including becoming paralyzed.”

Angel moved out of her family home at age 18, and the next couple of years were a mixed bag of mild successes and great disappointments. A woman close to had told her she had such a great body that she would make a good stripper. Needing the money, she gave it a go, but that career only lasted about a week and a half. “I hated it,” she says. A few months later she married a man who constantly abused her. In one harrowing experience, he damaged her face so badly that she hid it with extra makeup for an audition she had the next day

The Angel Falls

One morning she realized she could not continue on with the abuse and found the strength to leave her husband. As she struggled to find her way into the music entertainment world, she made a few connections in the industry. She gained major headway by touring with Eazy E, NWA and LL Cool J, while also dancing in music videos. “I loved that lifestyle, and we were every bit like a real family,” she says.

It was difficult for her to pay the bills consistently as the member of a touring dance crew, and Angel recalls an extremely low point in her life occurring right around that moment. “I really needed only $500 to pay my portion of the rent, and I went to a guy who was a trusted friend at the time to borrow it. He wound up offering to give me the money, but only if I slept with him. Feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place, I did it,” she says. “I did what I needed to do to make sure my roommates didn’t get evicted because of me.”

That moment was heavy on her mind the afternoon that a hit-and-run driver struck her vehicle, causing it to spin out of control, hitting the center divider head-on and injuring her spinal cord at T10. She was 22 years old. Soon after, she lost her mother — who she says was the most important person in her world — to breast cancer.

Angel recovered physically in good time, but the emotional wounds were profound and enduring. She soon returned to much of her previous routine of clubbing and socializing, but she had chronic pain and severe bouts of depression after losing her mother. She also worried her romantic life might be severely affected, and that others would no longer find her attractive. She started hanging out with the wrong crowd, was introduced to crack cocaine and remained addicted to the drug for nearly two years.

“It’s funny because all that time touring in the hip-hop world, you know weed was around me a lot, but I was never really that into that,” she says. “But after my car accident and losing my mother, I had all of this pain, physical and emotional, and I needed something to help me through it.”

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Finding Freedom in Jail

Eventually her drug abuse landed her in county jail, where someone handed her a Bible. The first passage she opened it to was Romans 8:18:

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

This verse proved to be a veritable life-changer for her, and she embraced the concept of self-determination. She recalled her father’s fighting spirit, and she willed herself to turn her life around. At the same time, she opened her heart to the presence of God in her life and attributes any successes she has had to God’s love for her.

While speaking with Angel, I find religious references sprinkled throughout her conversation, but I never get the sense that she is trying to convert me. The presence of a higher power is clearly a strong motivator in her life, and one in which she takes great value and pride. “God gave me a gift to teach with love and compassion. I have personally witnessed many miracles and I am forever thankful,” she says.

Angel has numerous opportunities to reach a wide range of people through a motivational speaking platform, and she encourages those she meets to “push the limits of life.” She genuinely believes, “No matter what obstacle you face in life, they are all able to be overcome. If you have a heartbeat and breath in your lungs, artificial or not, you have purpose!”

The Push Girl Years

One of the brightest moments of Angel’s career came with a starring role in the 2011 romantic comedy, Musical Chairs, directed by the Desperately Seeking Susan director Susan Seidelman. At first Angel was dismayed with the film when she realized it called for several characters who use wheelchairs but that few of the parts would go to actors who had true disabilities. She met with the director to voice her concerns and coached the actors portraying wheelchair users, including her friend Laverne Cox – who is known for her starring role as a transgender woman, Sophia Burset, in Orange Is the New Black. Angel believes it was a meaningful learning experience for all involved.

The following year brought her breakthrough, as Push Girls began in April 2012. During the two-year run of the groundbreaking reality show about four women wheelchair users seeking the good life in Los Angeles, it became clear early on that all of the women on the show were intriguing and appealing in individual ways. For Angel, it was her slick fashion sense, engaging backstory, and intriguing personal life that compelled viewers to eagerly tune in and follow her on a weekly basis.

The show came about from her authentic friendship with creator Angela Rockwood, and co-stars Tiphany Adams and Mia Schaikewitz — three other women with SCI who shared a common goal of changing the world with their experiences. It was originally entitled Chairlie’s Angels (get it — Chair-ly?), and it was unlike anything else on television at the time. Its odds of success seemed unlikely, but once a few producers at Sundance got hold of the concept, they decided it was too unique to pass up. They renamed the show Push Girls, which was a natural fit for both its literal and symbolic reference to life from a wheelchair user’s perspective.

During the course of the reality show’s two-season run, Angel was all the things we’ve come to cherish in this medium — she was brash, outspoken, daring, charming, sexual, confrontational, vulnerable, pulsing with vitality and confidence. It was hard to look away whenever she was on the screen.

While Push Girls was on the air, LL Cool J called her out on stage at one of his concerts. “Once I finished, I rushed off to tweet about my awesome experience,” she said in the comments of her August 6, 2013, YouTube clip. “All of a sudden, he called me out once again and whispered in my ear, ‘I’m so proud of you!’ and that will forever ring in my soul as God’s confirmation that I am on the right path!”

She seemed to have everything — booming personality, flashy wheelchair, great fashion sense, admirable career as a choreographer and her own wheelchair dance team, Colours ’n Motion, that she founded in 2003. Not to mention she also had a handsome, extremely supportive partner at home, her husband, Eric. Today, although Angel and her husband have separated, they are still friends and she remains optimistic and confident about her future in this ever-shifting landscape of modern entertainment.

At age 51, some 28 years after her accident, Angel is still in the game. Despite having had recent surgery to repair a collapsed disc, she is in the studio working on a hip-hop album that she hopes will debut sometime this summer. But, as many can attest, aging is rarely easy or graceful.

“It sucks aging at any ability level, yet it really sucks aging with a disability,” she says. “My advice to the next generation is take care of your bodies as much as possible. Appreciate what you have, while you have it. Balance — and everything in moderation — is key.”

For the woman who once referred to herself as “JLo before there was JLo,” there simply is no time to slow down. As she once philosophized in a moment from season one of Push Girls: “If you live for hope, life passes you by … so dance ’til the wheels fall off.”

Auti on Instagram

@AutiAngel: Auti Angel’s Instagram is where some lucky fans scored invites to a Zoom party with Angel and the other Push Girls at the end of February. Watch it regularly for info on how to sign up for hip-hop classes with the wheelchair dancer and, if you love ’90s hip-hop, you’ll want to see her dancing to Salt ‘N’ Pepa and the classic photos of her with Jamie Foxx, Usher, Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J and many more. This account is a GenX who’s-who without the grunge. Although Angel keeps up a presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, her Instagram account is the most active and fun to follow. Be sure to visit her website, autiangel.com, as well.