I don’t carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it’s the general public that made me – not any one particular group. So I don’t think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.
This is where you see the truth of entertainment, because it is not edited. You see it on stage as it is happening. Even if we fall down or forget our words, it’s a part of live entertainment.
I had almost three acres of land in Beverly Hills. And I had a big atrium of chickens because I love that feeling of being in the country and living from the soil.
A lot can be said with just a look, or the way the body moves. Each song is a different character. So each song takes on a different movement of the body. And the body has to go with the subject and the attitude that you have toward that subject.
I see them in my audience all the time, with the fur coat, a woman whose hand is always out front, or the two fingers are on the cheek to show her diamond. I don’t have anything against that.
I never identified with anybody. I have always been very sensitive about my color, because everybody called me ‘yellow gal.’ I was caught in between both sides – nobody wanted me. I love that my audience is there, but I always feel as though I have to fend for myself.
