“I don’t have any regrets. If I could have talked to my 19- or 20-year-old self, I would have said, ‘You’re going to be fine. It ain’t that serious!’”

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m way more of a joker than I am a serious person.

So often, you don’t get that opportunity. You only go over everything once and, the next thing you know, you’re on set.

I learned you really do have to make sure you enjoy life.

I enjoy just being me. I don’t need to be Queen Latifah, the brand, 24 hours a day.

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.

Beauty is not just a white girl. It’s so many different flavors and shades.

Most people don’t have so much talent that they can become a success all their own. We all need people to help us and lift us up.

To me, I always felt like I was carrying a torch for women of any size to be themselves – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a size 2 or a 22, just be who you are.

Every woman is a queen, and we all have different things to offer.

Dreams become reality when we put our minds to it.

It’s not always easy to do the right thing. But, doing the right thing makes you strong, it builds character.

Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.

I write pretty often. I have a home studio. Music is what I do for fun. I never get tired of it, so to take a break from [TV and movies], I would go make some music.

If my brother and I wanted money in our pockets, we had to get jobs – my first was at 15, at Burger King.

There are different flavours of sexiness.

There are so many things I’d like to do. Like becoming a parent. To me that is the next natural progression in life.