I don’t judge people by their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, so I find it really hard to identify someone by saying that they’re a gay person or a black person or a Jewish person.
I’m a parent, and I try to take care of my health and keep my life in order. In the last few years I’ve really had to decide what’s important to me, and it seems to me that my family and my health are top on the list. And those have nothing to do with show business.
It’s easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.
I majored in fashion design in school, and I have always wanted to design my own line of clothing, jewelry, and stuff like that; so this was just a step for me in that direction.
I learned something from that. If someone asks me something that I really don’t want to do, I say no. I have to trust that. And I’m not afraid to talk money.
My father worked hard, but we were still very poor; and I didn’t want anybody arguing about money, so I became the entertainer, the one who wanted everyone to be happy. I didn’t want there to be any problems.
So I’m not worried about the emotions I carry with me, because I’m happy that I have them; I think it’s good for the work I do. The emotions that are not healthy are the ones you hold inside, like anger.
