I grew up in a very modest house. We were poor-we lived on the poverty level. We all got jobs as young kids.

I came along at a time when the industry was eating its young.

All I ever wanted to do was write songs and get on a bus and go play them for people.

I guess we guess our way through life. How many times do we really know for sure?

I felt like a sinful person when I dated men and allowed them to feel for me in a way I knew I could never naturally feel for them. That felt wrong and a lie.

If I have a hit, then I hope the people who like the hit song go out and buy my album so they can hear it all.

As a young girl, there were the obvious messages about what girls could and couldn't achieve. And to compound the limitations I felt being leveled upon me, I realized at the age of nine, that I was gay.