All of a sudden I feel more womanly, I feel like I got a figure. I was always really straight up and down, the skinny one in the middle, like that poster at Elaine's of the Supremes at Lincoln Center - it was done by Joe Eula. To me that's really a reflection of the way I was. I was just like a bean pole. Now I'm getting a few curves and I like it.

My name, Diana Ross, is my name and nobody should be able to use that for exploitative purposes but me.

It tickles me, my daughter said that to me. She said, "Mommie, why is it that every time they say your name they put your age right behind it?"

I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.

I have three girls, and I say the same thing to them. I'm not involved in their careers because I've learned that it's important for them to stand on their own two feet. They'll feel better and prouder of themselves if they do.

I don't have to sit around and wait for the next movie to come along, I can go out and sing.

With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me.