I would love to have a rapper on one of my songs, like Ludacris, or the 'it's so hot in here' guy, Nelly.

I posed nude to show my parents they couldn't dictate to me any more - that I control my life.

It was so strange. I knew that Josephine Baker had performed on the same stage but that night I felt it. Many of the same people who worked with Josephine Baker are still here. They know what they're doing. And that was a very comfortable feeling.

When I wake up, I always thank God. I'm grateful for another day, and he's allowed me this tiny thing that we should be appreciative of.

I think life is a learning lesson within itself. I think you should take the best out of everything that you see and that you encounter and make the best of it.

There's a lesson to be learned out of everything we go through in life. I recall when I left [Jack Gordon], and my mother was so upset. "How could you allow him to beat you? You should really be upset with him." And I said, "Mother, I can't be." She goes, "Why?" I said, "Because I can't harbor hatred in my heart." I was extremely religious and extremely naïve. God took me through that for a reason, for me to learn the outcome.

I'm an entrepreneur and I love business. That's what I've always done. I went to school for that. My father took me out and said, 'You're gonna be here like everybody else.'