Queen Latifah got candid during an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine and revealed struggles that not many know she had to fight.
One struggle in particular was not looking like the “typical” Hollywood girl.
“There’s probably no reason I should be here as an African-American girl from Newark. And for a lot of the things I’ve wanted to do in life, I haven’t looked typical. I was not born a size 2. I’m not skinny, period. I’m not willing to sleep with the director or step on somebody else’s neck to get the job.”
She revealed that she lost her brother, Lance, Jr., who was a police officer, after a fatal motorcycle crash. He was off-duty at the time. His sudden and unexpected death caused her to question her faith in God.
“My life was rocked to the core. And I felt guilty because I was angry at God. Lance was not there for me to share it with,” she says. “And I was thinking, Well, I don’t need this. I’d rather have my brother back.”
But it didn’t stop her from riding motorcycles, something she and Lance, Jr. often did together.
“I had to get back on. It was like a [healing] potion.”
That paired with being the victim of a carjacking made her turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism.
“Drinking a bunch of alcohol, numbing myself. Every day I would be faded, like a painting that’s just not vibrant, whose edges are dull,” she says somberly. “I wasn’t living my full life.”
She said it was her friend and Set It Off co-star, Jada Pinkett Smith, that got her back on track and suggested she get therapy. That, along with her faith, helped her get back on track.
Read the full interview here.
