Janis Joplin is definitely one of my biggest influences. She taught me how to feel music, and I don't think there's anyone like her that could bring such pain and emotion to a song.

We live in an epidemic of self-hatred. I see it daily with people coming at me, and they do it to everybody, it's not just me. The hatred is really stemming from them not liking themselves. When you look at it that way, I feel so much empathy and understanding for those people.

I signed my deal when I was 11, and the success I had, no one could explain that to an adult, what's about to happen to them, much less a kid. There's not many people around who've experienced that.

I am constantly working out-circuit training, jumping rope, and stair-stepping, and sticking to 1200 calories a day. It can't be something that you're doing to lose weight, and then once you do, you're done. I do it every day of my life.

I know you can't go back, so I try to do all the things other teenagers do.

I've never heard a song written from a stepmother's point of view, about their family.

I was 5 when I won my first song and dance competition, and my parents asked me if that is what I wanted to do, and I said, "Yeah." At 5, how can you know that? On some level, I knew that was my gift.