The path to your success is not as fixed and inflexible as you think.

The word "prodigy" was thrown around a lot, but I didn't understand what that meant, or the weight of it. It didn't really mean anything to me, until I was older and could look back on it.

For me, I was in school and I pushed myself to be a good student, just because that's the type of person I was, but I never had a connection to any of it. I don't think my brain functioned in a way that was at its height, when I was in school. I needed something like art to really value the way my mind works. I wasn't reaching my full potential by sitting in a classroom and reading from a book. My mind didn't work that way.

Ballet.something pure in this crazy world

The best piece of advice that I remember probably on a daily basis is to accept everything about me that is different. That is what makes me special.

I don't feel like my life is that of a superstar! Every day I wake up, I take the train, I go to my ballet class. My everyday life is pretty normal.

Some people even think that I'm still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it's shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I'm too bulky, I'm too busty. And then they meet me in person and they're like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it's just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it's more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is.