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I was an optimist, a great champion of the human spirit. And I lost that for a time. I feel like I've regained a bit of that in the last few years but there was a period of my life in which I had a very low opinion of people in general.

I was raised to sense what someone wanted me to be and be that kind of person. It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.

I was brought up in an environment to believe that my opinion was important, that I had something to say, and that it was no less powerful because I was young, a girl, at the time really unattractive, definitely not the smartest kid in the class.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

I've learned how to look at things and not judge them, but respect them and use it in a way that people understand that I respect them, show them love and respect their reality.

One thing that I don't think my critics realize about me is that I've been trained to look adversity in the face.

I always knew I was different and that people had opinions about me. I guess I learned as best as I can to shield out a lot and live my life from within.

A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.

I had low self-esteem.

I was bullied and picked on because I was so different to everyone else, and I definitely didn't believe or even know I was fabulous back then. But those hard times made me everything I am today. It's all water under the bridge now, but being bullied and going through adversity definitely made me stronger.