To wanna be me is to go through not just the good but the bad. You wanna share my story identically? Man, you gonna take some lumps.

I was not born a size 2. I'm not skinny, period. I'm not willing to sleep with the director or step on somebody else's neck to get the job.

My mom was my main influence growing up, and Phylicia Rashad reminded me a lot of my mother, just the way she handled certain things, she was... not soft-spoken but smooth-spoken. Just very calm, cool, collected about things.

To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco.

There was always music in our home. My mom and my dad loved music. I remember when we were kids we would have these great parties at the house with congas and bongos and African drums, and it was amazing. It wasn't until years later that I found out that they were actually Black Panther meetings.

I really don't know how to be anyone else, and whenever I try to be anyone else, I fail miserably. Or I disappoint myself. It doesn't build my self-esteem, and it doesn't help me grow me at all.

It was a very vulnerable time going from being insecure about my body and who I am to becoming comfortable with me. I had to tune out what the hell everybody else had to say about who I was. When I was able to do that, I felt free.