Born in Portland, Maine, Victoria was raised in foster care for 18 years. Under the auspices of the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, eight year old Victoria received the Ford Foundation scholarship to the Cambridge School of Ballet, where after eight years of training, she flourished as a dancer garnering scholarships to both the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theater by age sixteen.

Victoria Rowell landed the role of Drucilla Winters on The Young and the Restless in March of 1990. During her run on the daytime drama, Victoria has been honored with a Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Actress, a nomination for a Soap Opera Digest Award for Hottest Female Star, and won seven NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series.

Victoria's work on the silver screen included appearances in feature films such as The Distinguished Gentleman alongside Eddie Murphy, Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carey and Eve's Bayou with Samuel L. Jackson and Diahann Carroll. Recently, Rowell portrayed matriarch, Josette Metoyer opposite Forest Whitaker in Showtime's acclaimed mini-series, Feast of All Saints, based on the novel by author Anne Rice. Feast of All Saints featured an all-star cast and allowed Rowell to explore the depths of her acting ability as an elderly Haitian plantation owner.

Having spent eighteen years in foster care, Victoria became a voice for children like herself. In 1990 she founded The Rowell Foster Children's Positive Plan, which sponsors foster children to study fine arts and sports, in addition to facilitating job opportunities for older youth with Viacom, other companies include BMG and Oxygen. An actress and a singer, Renee has performed with some very well known artists in the industry. Barry White, Al Green, Yolanda Adams, Whitney Houston, Vonda Shepard to name a few. Renee's first album, Everything But the Kitchen Sink, includes three John Lennon songwriting awarded songs.