I don't party now, and nobody really knows how to party with me anymore. So I stay in a lot. I really am a home person.

Some people are both genders. I think you just come out the way you come out, and you have to embrace it honestly.

My brother used to get beaten up all the time because he was very effeminate.

People always like to make me seem taller than I am.

Listen to my advice; I have some experience. In a way, it is me being a teacher, which is what I wanted to be. I still feel I could go into teaching. What is teaching but passing on your knowledge to those who are at the beginning? Some people are born with that gift.

The problem with the Dorises and the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision, and they forget that once you get into that whirlpool, then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent.

There will always be a replacement coming along very soon - a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven't got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday's event.

There is some Eighties music that is just timeless. The melodies, the lyrics... I called it church. Church in club. You can shout and dance. The best of the Eighties was club church.

I like to experiment, and as an actress, I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things.

I was a go-go dancer, too. I called myself 'Grace Mendoza' to fool my parents.

Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, 'You can't be exposing all your legs.' That's how strong the influence of the church was on us all.

I see myself as no color. I can play the role of a man. I can paint my face white if I want to and play the role of white. I can play a green, I can be a purple. I think I have that kind of frame and that kind of attitude where I can play an animal.

They used to call me Firefly when I was a little girl, and I always tried to figure out why I was being called a firefly. I was really black, black, black from the sun. After being in Jamaica for 13 years, my eyes were really beady and white, and my skin was really black. I must have really looked like a fly. My eyes looked like lights, like stars.

I don't wear jewelry, so I wear furs. I don't have diamonds.

I wanted to be a 'jungle mom', where you're giving birth and getting up and doing things straightaway.

If you want me to work with you, then come with an idea. Come with music.

I'm always rebelling. I don't think I'll ever stop.

I am an actress first, a singer second.

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.

To be honest, my life is not really as way-out and myth-loaded as people like to portray it.

I don't like people who hide things.

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

I'm too vain, one of my biggest sins, but it saved me; I can see what excess does.

You can't expect your children to be perfect.