I'd so much rather people think I was funny than pretty.

I don't consider myself a goody-goody, but I like to be perceived as classy.

I really came out to L.A. to take the money and run.

May I say, if you were suddenly put into a woman's body, wouldn't you be slightly interested in your breasts, and why people look at certain parts of you, and why certain parts move like they do?

I think it became blurry because I grew up in a very private family. I mixed privacy and secrecy up somewhere along the line. Everything became a secret, and I thought that was how you should live. Lying about everything. The mask I put on as a kid to survive was the funny lady. Then the funny person all of a sudden became harder to do without substances. Substances let me keep the mask on longer. Until it doesn't work anymore and you're just a mess.

Right now one in three teenagers meets the medical criteria for addiction, which is scary. I'm so driven because when I walked into rehab, I was like, "Am I still drunk? Did the guys give me the wrong address? Am I at a summer camp?" And it kills them. Deaths attributed to drugs and alcohol have overtaken all other emergency-room deaths.

I was a full foot taller than any child my age.