Christine Quinn "grew up real quick" when she was sent to an "alternative school".
Christine Quinn reflects on teenage years
The 'Selling Sunset' star was taken out of mainstream education when she was 16 to be homeschool so her mother - who had various health problems including lupus, arthritis, breast cancer, and an aneurysm - could spend more time with her in case she died, but her mom found she couldn't teach so sent her daughter to a facility for children with special circumstances, which Christine found to be "an eye-opener".
She said: "She sent me to an alternative school. And that was, you know, an eye-opener.
"I went to school with people that were members of gangs, with girls that were being trafficked. With girls that were prostitutes, and I would see their pimps pick them up after school. Girls that were pregnant.
"[Kids who were] in and out of jail, problems with drugs. And I learnt to grow up really quick."
Christine herself was arrested on her 17th birthday for marijuana possession and her parents refused to bail her out in order to "teach [her] a lesson".
She recalled to the Sunday Times Style magazine: “At my birthday someone gave me a little marijuana. My parents taught me a lesson. They left me in jail for four days.
“The food was horrible, and everyone was in there for things like prostitution, and I was just, like, I’m here for weed.”
When she got home, the 33-year-old star - who has six-month-old son Christian Jr. with husband Christian Richard - moved out and enrolled in acting classes, where she had her Texan accent "beaten" out of her.
However, she noted: “Sometimes when I drink it can come out.”
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