On paper, my history says that my future was not very promising. But through grace, I have the opportunity to prove that where you start is not where you have to end up.
I'm not nearly as big as I was, but I attribute that to eating healthy. I'm just not a skinny girl, and I just want to give more opportunities to people like me.
I grew up in a very strict Pentecostal household.
A lot of times you'll have somebody who could be the most talented person in the world, but because they are plus-sized, they're not even considered for a call back.
As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools that society would say I needed to have in order to be any kind of success in life.
I was known for being talented, but I was still the fat girl. And it wasn't what people were looking for. There's a lot that you hear. There's a lot of cruelty out there. Some of it comes from the executive offices. It comes from other artists at times. It was a very difficult thing to overcome.
When I first came into the business, I had to, for the sake of being able to sell myself as an artist, always be happy and jovial and smiling. I was the happy nice girl, and I am the happy nice girl, but I have my moments, too.
There was no person, whether they thought I was too fat, too black, too country, too ghetto, too New York, too thug or too whatever! Nobody ultimately had the say over whether or not I was going to make it.
Sometimes I gotta look in the mirror and say, 'Hey, they're still saying you're too fat, but you're here! They gotta take it or leave it.' And in most cases, if they leave it, it's all good because they don't need to be in my space anyway.
My weight has been one of the most challenging things that I've had to deal with throughout my career.
There are many artists who feel that in order to move forward in their careers, they have to lose a drastic amount of weight.
It's hard to come across someone who can look past an artist who is larger and just see them for the talent they are and have them be willing to invest what's necessary to make them a star.
