“I don’t take the English press seriously at all because all they want is dirt. I hate them.”

I’m not as impatient as I used to be. I used to hit people if I didn’t like what they were saying. Just lash out. ‘Bam – shut up! Hahahah!’ I was terrible.

I didn’t think I had a voice at all, and I still think of myself as an interpreter of songs more than a singer. I thought it was too deep; people thought I was a man. I had a very strong Jamaican accent, too; the accent really messed me up for auditions.

I’m still shocked every time I see snow. The first bit of snow each year… I stay up and I watch it. And then I go out and pick it up and eat it and move around in it.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

Now when I enter a carriage, it almost empties. But there’s always one brave enough to stay.

We’re not perfect; we all have things that people might not like to see, and I like to show my faults.

When you start in that [model] business the rules are imposed upon you, but when you stay in the business long enough the rules could be broken.

I am an actress first, a singer second.

It doesn’t surprise me that people can’t see beyond my image. It’s amazing, but I can understand it. That’s what image is for. But it’s never a problem for me. It’s only a problem for them. I don’t really care. I do what I want regardless.

I came from a very strict background, and didn’t hear any Jamaican music when I was growing up.

I go feminine, I go masculine. I am both, actually. I think the male side is a bit stronger in me, and I have to tone it down sometimes. I’m not like a normal woman, that’s for sure.

I never do what anyone else is doing. I could walk away from music and become a farmer or do some crochet. The worst thing in life for me is to do something I’m not happy doing.

I never thought I was going to be a singer. That was an accident.

Disco was like the celebration of music through dance and my God! When you heard the music sometimes it was like, if you don’t get up and dance, you aren’t human!

I always thought that feminine, softer side was just too vulnerable to put out there, because then it’s like you’re opening up a door for everybody to come in, and you don’t know who’s going to come in that door.

It was very painful combing my hair. My grand-uncle was a Pentecostal bishop, and he was very strict: our hair couldn’t be permed or straightened. So I just cut it all off.