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I was raised by both parents up to 17. We had a good family. We had a middle class family, good teaching and good surroundings, raised by the church, where I went every week whether I wanted to or not.

I was raised mostly by my mom.

I raised my sister. I was six when she was born. My mother had to make a living for herself and it was very hard, so I was looking after my sister, cooking and cleaning, and she had four jobs.

My mom grew up in Kansas, my dad in Indiana. They had boring childhoods.

I grew up in a broken home, working class. My paternal grandmother raised me and my brother; my father was with us, and my mother lived in Jersey.

My parents were in high school when I was born. My mom was 16, my dad was 17. They were kids, at the very beginning of coming into their own and finding themselves.

When I was little, we moved around a lot, actually. In second grade, I think I went to three different schools. We were in Nevada and Oregon and as well as a few different places in Nebraska. I did go to high school in the same town.

I grew up in a family of nine kids.

I went to elementary school in L.A. I was born in L.A. My mother was from Redondo Beach. My father was French. He died six months before I was born, so my mother went home. I was born there. Not the childhood that most people think. Middle-class, raised by my mother. Single mom.

I've come to realize how much it really was a part of my upbringing, the Georgia part. We were away from town. It was just dirt and trees and spouses. And a lot of kids - my cousins, who were all like brothers and sisters to me - just a lot of kids at one time.