I came from a big family - two brothers and two sisters. So, there were always a ton of boys around and a ton of girls around. So, I grew up comfortable with both sexes.
From the time I was a little girl, I'd just always been naturally curious. And I was raised in a family that... would just get really worked up about inequities and unfairness.
I see girls who are so skinny on the catwalks, and I know so many of them destroy their lives and their family's lives.
This is the bunch of songs I did first, and it's just the type of thing I do. I am a Carter Family girl, so the record is book-ended with Carter Family songs.
I love being healthy. I get a lot of sleep. I'm a girl who eats. And I feel beautiful no matter how I look. I have my family to thank for that.
As a husband and as a father of girls, I cannot imagine any woman in my family making the sacrifice of sanity required to run for office. The limited reward for public service cannot blunt the cost.
It would be ridiculous for me to say I am unlucky, but, like any other family and any other girl, I've had my ups and downs.
I think the Miss Universe title not only gives me the opportunity to become a role model for Latina girls around the world, but to show that beauty isn't just about the outside.
So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.
The reason Jennifer Lawrence is allowed to be a body-positive role model to young girls and 'chubby' women is because she is representative of conventional beauty.
I learned the truth at seventeen, That love was meant for beauty queens, And high school girls with clear skinned smiles, Who married young and then retired.
I was never an ambitious girl, or even a self-confident one. I never went in for beauty pageants or wore a stitch of make-up until I went to Los Angeles.
I'm a 'never say never' girl. Frank Sinatra retired four times. He kept coming back. But there are people in our business who want to die on stage. Literally. I don't want to do that.
Teenage girls these days are more and more getting lured into thinking they should dumb themselves down, and that's going to attract the wrong kind of guy, and it's serious. It's serious business.
When you look at movies, the lead girl is always gorgeous and thin. There is a stereotype that you need to look a certain way and when you get in the business you really feel the pressure.
Female rappers get it the hardest. You have to be a girl, yet you have to be just as hard as the guys. I think some female rappers get scared out of the business before they can make it.
By 2003, every fool was getting into real estate. The checkout girl at my local supermarket handed me her newly printed real estate agent business card.
Because my business life is so busy, my home is really my sanctuary. That is where I reflect and spend quality time with my girls.
If I wasn't performing, I wasn't alive. That's the truth. My parents had absolutely no interest in the business, but they knew it made me happy, so they said 'Go for it, girl!'
I could never muster the courage to speak to girls in my college in Pune. Most of them were Parsis and spoke English. I came from a village and could barely converse in English.
That's the awesome part. Little girls now have a chance to look up and see women playing soccer, basketball, softball and now hockey - and know they can win a gold medal, too.
