I'm just going with the flow. I'm in the process, I'm on the path. I'm really working towards all of my goals and music is definitely on the way.

It just feels like I'm on the right path musically and I'm in the right mindset to continue out my mission in music because I'm not putting myself in a box.

My daughter is in love with Adele. She listens to her every day. To see someone with that much passion and soul move a 9-year-old is amazing and it's magical.

The extra opinions and the extra praise is just a bonus, it's not the main thing. The main thing is how I feel about myself. And I feel really good about myself.

I just want to continue to do comedy. Comedy, I'm discovering, is my niche. It's what I'm born to do, so I would love to have my own sitcom one day in the future.

One day it just hit me. This is it. You are not in love. So either stay in it because you have a child or be brave and find the man of your dreams and marry him for real.

I take conscious breaks for myself 'cause I like to rejuvenate and get my creative juices flowing. I also like to take my time with my creativity; I think it's important.

I just feel my sexuality is private. I'm very shy about being sexy. That part of me has been so closed to the public eye. I've sold millions of records with my clothes on.

When you fall in love, you wanna share it with people but you know there are some things that you need to keep to yourself, 'cause privacy makes things last longer, I feel.

Right now, it's really about my fans knowing that whatever I believed spiritually at the time is what I believed. I just wouldn't deliberately lie to them just to save my image.

All I could think about was, 'I just wanna blow him away. I wanna make him proud, because I really wanna sign with Timbaland and spend the rest of my career making music with Tim.'

It's easy to just give everything up, but it takes a lot of strength and a lot of willpower to just make yourself stay on it and get up and do something different. And I had to do that.

To be on this set today, I feel very blessed for the second chance and for the opportunity, my record company believing in me and everybody here just showing me so much love and support.

Whitney Houston is my idol and my mentor and my dream forever, like she will always be my favorite artist, ever, on the planet. Like I don't think I'll ever feel that way about another artist.

My daughter, I can't give up because she's watching and she's here and she's waiting for me to be an example. So, between her, myself, and my will, and me pushing myself, that's my inspiration.

I've been gone for a long time. I really want to give the fans something that they deserve to have. So, I'm working really hard on this. I really want to make it the best work I've done so far.

I can't believe Tina Turner actually was on the same stage. I can't believe I set foot on the same stage, and it's going to be an album, people are going to buy it, and it's going to be a video.

This is truly a blessing. Breyon Prescott, Peter Edge and Tom Corson believe in me and have introduced me to a home that also believes and knows exactly what to do with the type of music I'm doing.

That's the beautiful part about acting - you get to play somebody other than yourself. So, I'm open to people who can't sing, people who can, people that sing a little bit, or people that sing a lot.

Your children can be around you all day, but if you don't spend quality time with them and you don't pay attention to them and talk to them and listen to them, it doesn't matter that they're just around you.

What do I think of myself? I know my worth. I know my value. I know I have to lead by example. I can't just be all over the place. I put the energy out that I want given back to me. And again, I'm true to me.

I think it's really finding that belief in yourself, where you just have it no matter what's going on, no matter what anyone else says. I think that's the challenge, is to really have that belief in yourself.

The idea of kids helping other kids is such a great way to introduce children to being involved in charitable causes and volunteer work, setting them on the path to doing good for others throughout their lives.

My daughter hasn't seen me with anybody in five years. I'm very, very selective when it comes to that because I want to make sure that it's real. I don't want her to see me with just anybody because she means everything to me.

I would love to play a main character and then play different characters as well. I would want for it to be a sitcom, multicamera, audience - that's definitely a dream. It's in the works, so... it's closer than everybody thinks it is.

Music is infinite and personal. I don't want to put myself in a box. I want to try everything and I'm trying everything. I'm really trying to write what's in my heart and what I feel without a lot of help in that department. It's about being brave.

When you don't know your values or who you are or you start to believe things other people are telling you, you get lost. I was just lost because I didn't know what I meant to music or what music meant to me. Now I just belong solo and I belong by myself.

In my life right now, in my music, and just overall I feel like I'm winning. It doesn't matter what this person is saying or what the charts are saying or what award shows are saying, the public opinion doesn't matter. I feel like I'm winning in my spirit.

I don't know where to find a good guy. I just think that they're around and I think you have to be good and at some point you'll attract that. I really believe that. First, people should stop looking. The looking thing does not work. Just let love find you.

It feels amazing to be back on set. It feels like home, even though the territory is a little bit unfamiliar because it's a new show, it's a new character, but once you get in the groove and you start to settle in and trust the moment, you start to really feel at home.

I feel there's so much purpose that's left in me to share with people and I'm just ready to use my gift in the right way because I know I have a gift and it's unique and different than anybody else's. I'm supposed to do something with it and I'm happy that I know that now.

I love music. That's my first love. I'm actually going to start working on that full-time very soon, but I love acting as well. It satisfies a different part of who I am. I love to pretend, to imagine, try new things, work with different people, and just see how far I can go.

When I was 17, my producer Rodney Jerkins was working with Michael Jackson at the time. He knew how much I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, so he says, 'Would you like to come and meet him?' I'm like, 'Are you serious? Of course I want to meet Michael Jackson! Where do I meet you? Where do we come?'

I was just so honored to play the role of Cinderella and to just be the first African-American princess, that's just historic for me, that's such a mark in my life and my career and then the bonus of just working with my favorite person in the whole world, Whitney [Houston], like her voice just did something to my spirit.

I think different struggles in life, not knowing how to deal with certain things that have happened in my life made me doubt myself. Painful moments in your life can cause you to go into a state of depression where you don't believe that you deserve anything good in your life. You forget what you were created for. But after a while I just got tired of feeling like that.

I'm not an R&B singer, I'm a singer. I can sing any music that makes me feel inspired whether it's Country, a little bit of Rock and roll but within my roots as well. I'm not going too far with it, but it'll be within my roots. I feel like trying a different way to express my music because so many people have already taken from what I've done in the past and it kind of makes me not want to ever do anything that I've done before.

The '90s period I just miss because it was such a great time and the music was just so electric. Everybody just had to bring their A-game back then because everybody that was, you know, a big influence...they were on the charts. I bring that era with me everywhere I go. I care about every word I sing. I care about every move I make on stage. I care about the fans. I bring that with me to the present time. And then, when you're timeless, you can work in any time.

It'd be negligent to say that I don't want to be at the top of the charts. Of course I do, it's proof that your song is being heard. But I think it's more about the work for me and being proud of what I'm doing in music than what people think about my music. I want to like my music before you like it. I don't want to sell anything that I don't really like. I don't want to sell myself short just to get to the top of the charts. It doesn't feel that great. Feeling proud of your work feels greater than being at the top of the charts.

I've figured out the secret. Your mind is your power; you have to work with your mind and work with your own thoughts about your own life. If you spend so much time thinking, "This industry is male-dominated. It's sexist. It's this. It's that," then that's what the picture will always be. I remember when I was coming up, I didn't have those thoughts. My mom told me I could be whatever I wanted to be and I could be as bright of a star as I was meant to be. So, that's where I put all of my focus and my thought...into what I could do. And I carry that with me now.

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