
CELEBRITY QUOTES ON BULLYING, SELF-ESTEEM, BODY IMAGE, DATING & MENTAL HEALTH.
Check back often because we are always adding new quotes.
Body Image
Solange Van Doorn
“My mom is a girl from New York, and my dad is a strong, sturdy Dutchman. I grew up with dual citizenship, and I still don’t have a grasp on American beauty standards. It used to be about having blonde hair, blue eyes, skinny-girl stuff, but now it’s like if you are true to yourself and an individual, you’re beautiful. As a girl who’s happiest in an oversize T-shirt and seawater in my hair, I’m pleased with that.” -Allure
Breck Gambill
“I’m a bohemian type of person, but to me [American beauty] is being a strong-minded human who makes her own decisions-being able to plan your own life and live to please anyone but yourself.” -Allure
Gabrielle Nevaeh Green
“I was the only African-American girl in my middle school class. I felt like I needed to straighten my hair to fit in. Once I embraced my natural hair, I loved it” -GL
Gabrielle Nevaeh Green
“I love when girls of color don’t relax their hair and go natural. It’s really inspirational because growing up you’re kind of punished to fit the mold.” -GL
Lizzo
“I don’t like it when people think it’s hard for me to see myself as beautiful.” -Glamour
Viola Davis
“In the beginning of my career, I handled rejection by personalizing it. For me, people were just cementing what I felt like I already knew about myself: that I wasn’t attractive.” -People
Viola Davis
“If I could tell my 13-year-old self anything, I would tell he that she was enough. I wasted so much time listening to the naysayers. An I just wish I had listened to the other voices of people saying that I was beautiful and talented. I always thought that when you listen to that you were conceited, but I wish I had listened to that more. I wish I has pranced through the world with just hoity-toity confidence and overexuberance.” -People
Viola Davis
“I’m definitely teaching Genesis that beauty is within. I mean, we have got to get past physical beauty, selfies, even though I’ve taken a selfie in my day. But I always say, ‘Genesis, your heart and your head are the two most important parts of you.’ The physical falls away. The things that you can take with you that really are of value have nothing to do with the physical.” -People
Nathalie Emmanuel
“Not everyone is going to be kind, and not everyone is going to be respectful on social media. Sometimes those comments can get into the psyche, but I am not going to go crazy because of some keyboard warrior somewhere. That doesn’t stop me wanting to be who I am or say what I think or do the things I do. I workout and I aim for health- I don’t aim to be skinny. I’m over that sort of pressure. I just want to feel good. Yoga helps me de-stress, and meditation has helped me identify things that I need to heal from. That has made me a much happier and more confident person. I’m very proud of my journey, I’m just being myself, and that’s all I can try to do.” People Magazine
Summer McKeen
“It’s crazy how hard we girls are on ourselves about the way we look. I feel responsibility to my followers to be a role model. I want so badly for them to know their worth as human beings.” GL
Gwyneth Paltrow
“I’ve always felt so funny about my looks. I think that it’s very rare to think that you’re a beautiful person, and so I feel like every other woman- like, I don’t see that when I look in the mirror.”
Willow Smith
Cutting, she says now, provided “a physical release of all this intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.” But as she read about both science and spirituality, she says, “I was like, ‘This is pointless- my body is my temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I learned to see myself as worthy.” People Magazine
Lil Key

Madonna

Jillian Michaels

Pink

Katy Perry

Meryl Streep

Miranda Cosgrove

Aimee Teegarden

Candice Huffine

Halsey

Winnie Harlow

Brooke Shields

Emma Stone

Demi Lovato

Penelope Cruise

Jonah Hill

Anne Hathaway

Emmy Rossum

Pink

Mandy Moore

Hugh Jackman

Mandy Moore

Tom Brady

Gina Rodriguez

Gal Gadot

Miranda Kerr

Olesya

Danielle Brooks

Kofi Siriboe

Adele

Yara Shahidi
“”Everyone has dealt with their share of random negative comments. It all comes down to how you handle it. For me, it’s about having constructive conversations instead of ignoring the issue. I found a lot of success in saying: Hey, wondering why you feel that way? And this is how I feel.” Seventeen Magazine
Tiffany Haddish
“Kids would tease me all the time. They’d say I got flies on me and I smell like onions. There was one nickname that stuck: Dirty Ass Unicorn. I had a wart on my forehead. It was spiky and big and I could not hide it. All I could do was hurt myself. I would take scissors and try to cut off my horn. it would bleed down my face. Hurting myself made them stop hurting me and care about me. Finally I went to a doctor and they burn that s–t off.” People Magazine
Demi Lovato
“Getting in the gym makes me feel the best I possibly can, so I make sure I get that in. It’s all about finding your strength, feeling comfortable in your own skin. I never thought I’d be in such a great place. That’s the beauty of working on yourself and taking care of yourself. You get to places where you never thought you’d be.” People Magazine
Barbra Streisand
“I was an ugly duckling and a loner. I was known as the kid who had a good voice and no father. My mother laughed at my ambition. She never hugged me or said words like, ‘I love you.’ I never would have ended up doing what I’m doing. I owe her my career. I was always trying to prove to her that I was worthy of being somebody. If you don’t feel loved as a child, you spend your life trying to get that love. People who have two parents who love them are very lucky. They are not left with a hole to fill. You have to fill it with yourself, eventually.” CLOSER
Lucy Hale
“I was the one small brunette among tall blondes. You only get one body, might as well love it. Nothing is the end of the world. Flash forward a year and [ask], ‘Is this really going to be that big of a deal?’ In the long run, it’s really not.” GL
Christina Aguilera
“You can never be too perfect, too thin, to curvy. I’m very confident and happy with
my body.” US Magazine
“It’s important to recognize your own self-destructive behavior and be honest about it.
You’re only hurting yourself or losing out on your truth and happiness. I’m not afraid to face
my own personal stuff. It’s so important to dig it up and figure it out and move on.” Cosmo Girl
“I like my body when I have curves. We all come indifferent shapes and sizes, and this is
something to celebrate.” Parade Magazine
Vanessa Hudgens
“I was self-conscious of what I would call my ’tree trunk legs’ because they are very muscular…but now I’ve learned to love them.” PEOPLE
Hillary Scott
“I know I will never be a size 2, and that’s okay with me. There are definitely days when it gets to me, but I know part of the reason I have this platform is to be a normal-size person in an industry that tells everyone exactly how they should look. Your body is your body. You need to take care of it, you need to eat well, and you need to exercise for your life, not for anything else.” Redbook
Jillian Michaels
“Giving yourself a compliment doesn’t mean that you are better than another person, it just means that you respect yourself.”
Cara Delevingne
“I was always embarrassed about them (eyebrows) when I was a child, so it’s nice that [the positive response] helps other girls accept theirs. Now I could talk about brows all day. I feel that some days you wake up and you’re having a bad day and you just have to try to remember that it will be all right. It’s a daily mantra. It’s not about trying to be weird. W’re all weird. It’s about being who you are and not trying to be anyone else.” PEOPLE
Peyton List
“Depending on the day, my skin can be completely clear…or a blemish-ridden mess. My hair is either sleek and shiny…or dull and frizzy. And sometimes, no matter how I might appear in a picture, I just feel crummy about the way I look. I can easily tell when a photographer has Photoshopped my face or body-you’d e surprised at how often it happens. It’s so sad when girls look at a highly edited picture of me and say, “Why don’t I look like her?” Hello, I’ve een airbrushed! So instead of comparing, I’m trying to focus on being the best version of myself. That might mean I wear makeup sometimes (it’s fun!) and use my favorite tricks for taking good selfies(natural lighting is key). But it also means that on the days I feel like waking up and rolling out with my face completely bare and my hair in a messy bun, I’m going to do that too-because I’ve realized there’s no better feeling than when you actually woke up like this” Girls Life
Jordyn Woods
“Depending on the day, my skin can be completely clear…or a blemish-ridden mess. My hair is either sleek and shiny…or dull and frizzy. And sometimes, no matter how I might appear in a picture, I just feel crummy about the way I look. I can easily tell when a photographer has Photoshopped my face or body-you’d e surprised at how often it happens. It’s so sad when girls look at a highly edited picture of me and say, “Why don’t I look like her?” Hello, I’ve een airbrushed! So instead of comparing, I’m trying to focus on being the best version of myself. That might mean I wear makeup sometimes (it’s fun!) and use my favorite tricks for taking good selfies(natural lighting is key). But it also means that on the days I feel like waking up and rolling out with my face completely bare and my hair in a messy bun, I’m going to do that too-because I’ve realized there’s no better feeling than when you actually woke up like this” Girls Life
Shay Mitchell
“I was always trying to be something that I wasn’t. As I got older, I started to realize that what I was born with is what I should be celebrating.” Teen Vogue
Ryan Destiny
“As a dark-skinned girl, I have many things that I’ve gone through that I wish more people would have addressed so I wouldn’t have felt so alone. I just want other girls to look up to me in that way. My goal is to break the boundaries and everything a person things a black woman should be. I just want to keep changing the game.” Teen Vogue
Topher Grace
TOPHER’s great advice for teens
“In high school I was skinny, and really short too — I like to think that girls wanted to like me, but couldn’t because of that.
Every teenager should find something that scares them [and do it]. If you’re into sports, try out for a play; if you’re into pottery, try out for football. If I’d been scared to try out for ’70s, I wouldn’t have made all these great friends and had such a great time and learned about this whole other side of myself.” Cosmo Girl
Minnie Driver
MINNIE DRIVER’s self-assessment is sadly moo-ving
“I was an ugly cow when I was younger.” In Touch
Kate Winslet
KATE on being mentally bullied
“When I was a teenager, I was very overweight. I was 190 pounds when I was sixteen. And as an actress I wanted to play Alice in Alice in Wonderland … And, so, over the course of a year, I very, very sensibly lost the majority of the weight. I changed the way I thought about food and my body.” Vogue
In the March 7 issue of US Weekly, Kate said classmates called her Blubber. She has said she was “mentally bullied. “…..I would just sit there and think, ‘Let this make you stronger.’
Drew Barrymore
DREW BARRYMORE on happiness, body image, relationships and more
“I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven’t had anybody looking over me, and I’ve found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people.” Elle
In an article in the February 23 issue of People magazine when asked about her life after the house fire and the demise of her marriage to Tom Green, Drew said, “…..All of a sudden I was free to be exactly who I wanted to be rather than who I thought I had to be for anyone else or anything else.” Did you know that Drew was called “Fatso” by the boys when she was in school? Yes she was. When asked about her wild days of drinking she said, “…..I’d been suffocating myself with trying to be such a good person that I realized I was making myself miserable.” “…..I can feel beautiful on the inside-and I can tell that shows on the outside. It’s amazing to me.”
“Maybe it’s different for every person, but my personal downfall in a relationship is losing a sense of myself, getting too involved in their world and their opinions and their lifestyle. I always have to struggle to be my own person, whether it’s as stupid as what I like to eat for breakfast or as big as how to conduct myself as an individual. What’s saving me in this relationship is the fact that I feel like I’m remaining my own person.” She also said, “…..If we could just admit our faults, at least we could be human. I think what became more important to me was not how other people saw me but how I saw myself. I do run a company. I am consistent at work. My bosses think that I will show up on time, and I’m reliable to them. I can respect myself. That ended up becoming the important journey for me. And, of course, I’ll always be a bit of a ridiculous clown, ’cause I just can’t help it.” Glamour
“I think that it is so important to believe in yourself and believe in your empowerment and not wait for someone to rescue you and do it for you. That you can go out there and create it all for yourself.” In The Actor’s Studio
“During my teen years … I was awkward; I had braces; I was overweight. I was always teased. It’s so funny because it’s always those kids who get beaten up in school who end up triumphing. It’s almost like you need that to build character-even though it’s painful to go through it.” Teen People
Christina Ricci
CHRISTINA RICCI on feeling ugly
“I got ugly. Throughout my childhood, my favorite [rejection] was: She looks too healthy. They wanted that really gaunt, runaway girl kind of look. I was, like, Mom, I thought you could never be too healthy. She (Christina’s mom) said, “Ignore them.”” Movieline Magazine
“I was really fat for a year. I was ugly. People would come up to me in the street and say, “Weren’t you Wednesday in The Addams Family? God, you’ve gotten so fat. I felt I was a separate person from the person they were talking about, and I’d want to take them aside and scold them: You can’t talk to me like that. Being overweight made it so hard for me to get films. I didn’t work for a year because of it, and it was devastating.” Interview Magazine
“As a teenager, I didn’t like to look in mirrors. I’d put collages and stuff over them; left the lights off in the bathroom. Those are the years when I feel like you hate yourself or love yourself.” Elle Girl
Cameron Diaz
CAMERON on body image
“When I was growing up, I hated my body, I was extremely, extremely skinny as a child for years I was seventy-nine pounds, and much taller than everyone else.
When I was in junior high, people thought I was sick. They used to call me Skeletor, or Skinny Bones Jones and all those other horrible names”
Halle Berry
Halle felt she was ugly
“A magical thing happened when I turned 40 – a light sort of went off, and I felt more self-assured and confident, like I finally had the right to be authentic about who I am, to say what I want to say. I guess that comes with getting older. Now I’m at this point in my life where I’m happy with myself. It’s not because I have a really cute boyfriend or a great career, I just feel good about me. And if any one of those things should dissipate, I’d still be OK. That feels like a really good place to be.
Halle didn’t always feel this way. After she was voted one of the world’s sexiest women she said she still doesn’t see herself as a big star. “To be totally honest, most of the time I think I’m ugly. I see myself without make-up every morning and that’s why I don’t have illusions any more. I certainly don’t feel like a big star.” Journal fur die Frau
“When I was a kid, my mother told me that if you can’t be a good loser, you can’t be a good winner. If you can’t take criticism, then you don’t deserve the praise.” Razzie Awards
Leonardo Dicaprio
Leonardo unpopular? Imagine that!
“I was entirely an unpopular student. I think teenage life is filled with narcissism and giant mood swings that are unnecessary and constantly inflating problems to phenomenally unrealistic proportions.” GQ
“We all have horrible fears and insecurities that we need to overcome. Mine came from never feeling accepted by any group, never being received. In school I was about a foot shorter than anyone else, always jumping up and getting laughs-a little smart-ass with a big mouth. School was like this wild safari where I could make a name for myself, but it never really worked. They just basically looked at you as the class clown and dismissed you. I never belonged. Parade
Neve Campbell
Neve called ugly by boys in school
“The boys wrote a song about all the girls in the (ballet) class, ranking them from prettiest to ugliest.” The last verse, “Neve-aagh!” was reserved for her. “It was about how ugly I was,” she said. Sassy
Liv Tyler
LIV TYLER on losing weight
“…..I’ve been told if I lose weight, I’d have more work, but I refuse to submit [to that]. To the rest of the world I’m slim, and I like the way I am.” Glamour
Debra Messing
“I was not asked at all. I didn’t go to my senior prom. I often danced by myself on the side.
“Growing up I was a string bean-skinny and tall-and I felt self-conscious about that. I worried about how skinny I was, the fact that I had no chest, my frizzy hair. When I started to work in television, makeup artists would point out flaws I’d never even noticed before, and it made me feel even more insecure.”
Ben Stiller
BEN STILLER wants you to treat each other kindly
“I was pretty insecure [around girls] because I had bad skin. Not really bad skin, but I had pimples. It affected my sense of who I was. It’s such a silly thing when you look back, but at the time, it drove me crazy. …..[High School] can be brutal because of the cliques and the way kids treat each other. But stick it out — it gets better. Things that seem like they mean the world at the moment, you’ll look back on and realize weren’t that important. It sounds like an after — school special, but it’s true.
Paula Abdul
“I was like any other teenage girl who wanted to be someone I’m not, and that was defined by what boys liked and what images of beauty the media perpetrated. Plus, when I was 7 years old, my ballet teacher said that I didn’t have a dancer’s body. That rang in my head as “I’m not normal; my body is wrong.” It affected me in profound ways. I’m a strong girl, but I’ve always been a believer that when I can’t manage, I surrender. I get myself to a place where someone can help me. I’m prouder of overcoming bulimia than of anything else I’ve done – more than having a number one record or selling out a concert. Celebrate yourself, embrace your struggle, and don’t walk with shame, because nothing is as bad as you probably think it is. When I got through bulimia, I stopped living as a prisoner. Let your body fall into its natural state. Every minute you stay enthralled with a diet or get caught up in how you think you should look, you lose, because you’re not enjoying life.”
Queen Latifah
“It was a very vulnerable time going from being insecure about my body and who I am to becoming comfortable with me. I had to tune out what the hell everybody else had to say about who I was. When I was able to do that, I felt free.” Parade
“I wish every woman would love themselves and embrace what they were given naturally. I’ve been fortunate to have the career I want without changing what I look like. If [producers] ever demanded I lose so much weight that I’m not even a remnant of who I am, then hell no, I’m not going to do that. Besides, there’d be a lot of girls out there who wouldn’t be inspired had I not been that girl with a little more weight who carried herself with that self-confidence.” In Style
Uma Thurman
“One of the things that struck me at fashion shows is how great these incredibly thin women look in photographs but how in real life it’s too thin. They would be more attractive if they were a little heavier. And I actually don’t think this desire to be rail thin is as pandemic aesthetically as the fashion world presents it to be. I don’t think men prefer women to look like that.”
Tyra Banks
“The modeling industry goes in and out of different styles and body types that are supposed to be hot at that moment. And right now, it’s not so much the heroin-chic, because the models are looking a little bit healthier to me–and when I say healthy, I don’t even mean body type, I mean just facial pigment and stuff like that. They have blush on their cheeks now again and they look a little healthier. But still such a stick, skinny ideal–which would have worked for me when I was 11 years old because I was 98 pounds and my same height and now I’m 130. So I was really, really thin and insecure. It would have worked well for me to look at that in a magazine and see that that was called beautiful. But the majority of little girls aren’t that way. The majority of them are struggling with their weight and are the opposite way. So I just think it’s important to show different body types and say that they are all beautiful which is not really what they do. When I lost all this weight–I went to an all-black private elementary school–and all the kids used to call me all kinds of horrible names. Then when I went to a mixed junior high school and all of my white friends would be like, ‘Oh my god, you’re so gorgeous. You’re so skinny. ‘By the way, I looked disgusting, I looked sick. But they’d be like ‘You’re so skinny. I wish I could be like you.’ And all my black friends would be like, ‘Girl, eat a pork chop! You are so skinny.’ And the white guys would be like ‘Tyra’s cute’ and the black guys would be like, ‘She’s too skinny. She needs some booty. I don’t want her.’ So it’s so cultural. And it’s sad because women, when it comes to their body types, are ruled by men in their culture. So white women want to be super skinny because that’s what white men seem to be attracted to. And the black guys want more meat.” GQ
Nicole Kidman
Nora Ephron said, “She (Nicole Kidman) told me that as a teen she was tall and gawky and covered with freckles. She would think, why does this body have to represent me?” Glamour Magazine
Kirstie Alley
“I think that we’re all sort of sick of being judged on how we look no matter if we’re too skinny. It seems you can’t be just right anymore. You’re either too fat or too skinny too old or too young too ethnic or too not, you know. You rarely go wow that girl’s just beautiful.” Today Show
Salma Hayak
Salma urges fans to not be impressed with her:
“In my world, you have to be so beautiful, so skinny, so rich, so famous – and I don’t believe you really have to be any of those things. You simply have to be who you are. I do have thighs and a butt. I have cellulite. Don’t be too impressed with me. Don’t try to dress like me or wear your hair like mine. Find your own style. Don’t spend your savings trying to be someone else. You’re not more important, smarter, or prettier because you wear a designer dress. I get them free and I’m too lazy to go out and look for my own. I, a rich girl from Mexico, came here with designer clothes. And one day, when I was starving in an apartment in Los Angeles, I looked at my Chanel blouses and said, “If only I could pay the rent with one of these.” O magazine
Celebrities Who Were Bullied
Gabrielle Nevaeh Green
“‘Hey you made such a big difference in my life and I can be myself because of you,’ It’s really heartwarming because I was just in that seat not too long ago-I know *exactly* what they’re going through.” -GL
Gabrielle Nevaeh Green
“All that negative energy really drove me toward my passion for acting, so, to all the people who bullied me, thank you!” -GL
Ruby Rose Turner
“There was bullying-just girls being nasty.” -GL
Kelly Clarkson
“I’ve just had so many jerks in my life tell me what I should be doing. ‘This is what a pop star should do, blah blah blah.’ It really helped me signify for myself what I should be doing for me. So I kind of thank all those jerks. It helped solidify who I am.” -People
Nathalie Emmanuel
“Not everyone is going to be kind, and not everyone is going to be respectful on social media. Sometimes those comments can get into the psyche, but I am not going to go crazy because of some keyboard warrior somewhere. That doesn’t stop me wanting to be who I am or say what I think or do the things I do. I workout and I aim for health- I don’t aim to be skinny. I’m over that sort of pressure. I just want to feel good. Yoga helps me de-stress, and meditation has helped me identify things that I need to heal from. That has made me a much happier and more confident person. I’m very proud of my journey, I’m just being myself, and that’s all I can try to do.” People Magazine
Tyra Banks
“People didn’t know I was going home at night crying my eyes out because a woman I was looking up to seemed like she was just didn’t want me to be there.”
Celine Dion
“Having problems with my teeth, [being] very, very skinny, being bullied at school, I can go on and on.”
Isabela Peruvian
“Everywhere you go, kids can be mean.” “In school, classmates openly expressed their opinions about me and made fun of the ‘weird’ way I spoke. Hearing me translate Spanish into English and jumbling phrases into things like ‘house brown’ or ‘car big’ would usually provoke much laughter. After that, I became extremely self-conscious. To this day, I still check myself before I say anything, like, ‘Is this cool to say? Is this going to make me fit in?'” Isabela added, “Embracing my culture. I realized it’s what makes me unique. Embracing who we are is what leads us home.” GL
Madonna

Jillian Michaels

Zach Galifianakis

Ellen DeGeneres

Daniella Perkins

Drake

Suzanne Somers

Angelina Jolie

Tom Brady

Tiffany Haddish

Julianne Hough

Misty Copeland

Amy Poehler

Kesha

Tiffany Haddish
“Kids would tease me all the time. They’d say I got flies on me and I smell like onions. There was one nickname that stuck: Dirty Ass Unicorn. I had a wart on my forehead. It was spiky and big and I could not hide it. All I could do was hurt myself. I would take scissors and try to cut off my horn. it would bleed down my face. Hurting myself made them stop hurting me and care about me. Finally I went to a doctor and they burn that s–t off.” People Magazine
Jason Segel
“Well, it’s just one terrible memory that replays every time I have a moment of insecurity. “[My classmates] would stand around me in a circle and they would jump on my back one by one and they would chant, ‘Ride the oaf, ride the oaf’.” Hollywood.com
Winona Ryder
“I was wearing an old Salvation Army shop boy’s suit. As I went to the bathroom I heard people saying, ‘Hey, f*****.’ They slammed my head into a locker. I fell to the ground and they started to kick the s**t out of me. I had to have stitches. The school kicked me out, not the bullies. Years later, I went to a coffee shop and I ran into one of the girls who’d kicked me, and she said, ‘Winona, Winona, can I have your autograph?’ And I said, ‘Do you remember me? Remember in seventh grade you beat up that kid?’ And she said, ‘Kind of.’ And I said, ‘That was me. Go f*** yourself.’” Huffington Post
Victoria Beckham
Tom Cruise
Sandra Bullock
“I’d come back [to school] from Europe and I looked like a clown compared to the cool way the other students looked and dressed. So I got my ass whooped a little bit… Kids are mean, and the sad thing is that I can still remember the first and last names of every one of those kids who were mean to me!” Huffington Post
Rumer Willis
Robert Pattinson
“I got beaten up by a lot of people when I was younger. I was a bit of an idiot, but I always thought the assaults were unprovoked. It was after I first started acting and I liked to behave like an actor, or how I thought an actor was supposed to be, and that apparently provoked a lot of people into hitting me.” Parade Magazine
Nick Vujicic
“My experiences with bullies left me feeling intimidated, depressed, anxious and sick to my stomach. If you know my personal story, you’ll remember that most grade school days ended with tears and on one occasion led me to a failed suicide attempt. I didn’t tell my parents when I was picked on because I didn’t want to upset them. I thought I could handle it myself, but I was wrong. I should have told them. As I travel around the world talking to tens of thousands of young people, it is evident that no one is immune from being bullied. This epidemic is not unique to North America. Bullying is a global issue.” Nick’s book, Life Without Limits
Miley Cyrus
Michael Phelps
Often bullied about his lisp and his big ears, Michael Phelps said in an interview, “It’s kind of crazy. When I do go up around where I used to live [in Baltimore], you still see the same people who were picking on me. They’re still around, busing tables or whatever, probably still acting the same way. They’ll try to talk to me and I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, why are talking to me now? You were picking on me then.'” Yahoo Sports
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Megan Fox
“Usually the bullies are the most insecure. I was bullied and it’s hard, you feel like high school’s never going to be over. It’s four years of your life and you just have to remember the person picking on you has their own problems and their own issues. And you’re going to be OK.” ENews
Lele Pons
“People threw food at me and sang songs about how ugly I was.” People
Justin Timberlake
“I grew up in Tennessee, and if you didn’t play football, you were a sissy. I got slurs all the time because I was in music and art . . . I was an outcast in a lot of ways . . . but everything that you get picked on for or you feel makes you weird is essentially what’s going to make you sexy as an adult.” Ellen
John Barrowman
“I knew at a very young age that I was gay. I was walking back to my locker and this kid caught up to me and he called me “fag”, punched me in the face, shoved me in the locker and shut the door. What do you do? You’re mortified, you’re embarrassed, you just think, what do I tell my mom and dad?”
Barrowman eventually stood up to his bully.
“You can hit me, you can punch me, and you can bully me and do everything you want. Punch me in the face as many times you want, but I will always get back up.”
Barrowman cautions that you shouldn’t try to do it alone.
“You have to find people around you to support you, right? Your friends. Your family. We all love super heroes. Why not be one? So make a stand for who you are and make a stand for someone else.” CBS8.com
Jennifer Lawrence
“I changed schools a lot when I was in elementary school because some girls were mean. They were less mean in middle school, because I was doing all right, although this one girl gave me invitations to hand out to her birthday party that I wasn’t invited to.” The Sun
Jackie Chan
“I was bullied quite a lot when I was growing up in my Peking Opera School. I allowed myself to be bullied because I was scared and didn’t know how to defend myself. I was bullied until I prevented a new student from being bullied. By standing up for him, I learned to stand up for myself.”
Eva Mendes
“I became a victim of bullying. I was a gawky, skinny girl with big teeth and that made me an easy target. I had two bullies and they tortured me all through junior high school.” Daily Mail
Eminem
“As a child, Marshall Mathers (Eminem) was bullied so severely he ended up in the hospital with a concussion and temporary blindness.” New York Daily News
Devyn Rush
“When I was being bullied at school, I would take all the mean things everyone said to me, and I would say them to myself 3000 times. What happens when you say something to yourself over and over again?… You start to believe it. I remember the first time I tried to say “I Love You” to myself. I looked in the mirror and said it. It was so painfully difficult. I didn’t believe it. But then I said it again. And again. And again. And now, after saying things like “I Love You” and “I Am Enough” 3000 times, I really believe it. One of my new affirmations is, “I have no room for negativity. I am filled to the brim with love!” I’m helping myself believe new positive affirmations all the time. It’s just like working a muscle.” From Devyn’s I AM ENOUGH bullying and suicide prevention school assembly & mini-concert for Hey U.G.L.Y. – Unique Gifted Lovable You
Derek Hough
“I was bullied as a young boy. They would tie my ankles up with a very rough rope and hang me in a tree upside down, spit on me and call me names, even hold a gun to my head. I
didn’t tell anybody — my parents or teachers or friends or sisters. I know now that the worst thing you can do is suffer in silence.” Derek Hough at GLSEN Gala
Demi Lovato
Christina Hendricks
“I had the worst high school experience ever. I went to a very mean school and was bullied like crazy… If I could go back and tell my 14-year-old self anything it would be, ‘Don’t worry. You’re going to be doing
exactly what you want to be doing and those people who are a***holes now are still going to be a***holes in 20 years. So let it go!’” Christina Hendricks in UK Mirror
Christian Bale
“I took a beating from several boys for years. They put me through hell, punching and kicking me all the time.” People Magazine
Ansel Elgort
“I went through a lot of bullying in middle school and it made me so upset all the time. I hated my life. I hated everything. I live in New York City in a high building with a little terrace. I’d go on the terrace and I’d look off the terrace and I literally just thought about jumping off because I hated living so much. It does make it so hard when your that age and everyone is being mean to you at school and you have to go to school every day and deal with people being mean to you. You feel like what you have to say isn’t important and that you’re not important. The way that I coped with it was making another group of friends outside of that group of people who were mean to me so that I had some sort of support system. Then I focused all my energy on acting and dancing and singing and music so that I felt like I had a purpose that sort of took me out of it and made me forget about it a little bit and it made it a lot better.” BystanderRevolution.org
Steven Levitan
None of us grew up feeling like winners. So thank you to the bullies, to the popular kids, to the gym teachers who taunted us, who rejected us and who made fun of the way we ran. Without you we never would have gone into comedy. Steven Levitan, co-creator/Exec. Producer of ABC’s Modern Family receiving an Emmy Award
Ellen Degeneres
“Most comedy is based on getting a laugh at somebody else’s expense. And I find that that’s just a form of bullying in a major way. So I want to be an example that you can be funny and be kind, and make people laugh without hurting somebody else’s feelings.”
Ansel Elgort
“I went through a lot of bullying in middle school and it made me so upset all the time. I hated my life. I hated everything. I live in New York City in a high building with a little terrace. I’d go on the terrace and I’d look off the terrace and I literally just thought about jumping off because I hated living so much. It does make it so hard when your that age and everyone is being mean to you at school and you have to go to school every day and deal with people being mean to you. You feel like what you have to say isn’t important and that you’re not important. The way that I coped with it was making another group of friends outside of that group of people who were mean to me so that I had some sort of support system. Then I focused all my energy on acting and dancing and singing and music so that I felt like I had a purpose that sort of took me out of it and made me forget about it a little bit and it made it a lot better.” BystanderRevolution.org
Demi Lovato

“At 12 years old, I was bullied in school. Girls were calling me fat, so I thought,’That’s the reason I don’t have any friends.’ So I stopped eating. I became very weight-conscious, and I lost 30 lbs. I went down to 95 lbs. I’ve battled depression from a young age. I never found out until I went into treatment that I am bipolar [a disorder that causes dramatic and sometimes violent mood swings.] At first I was like, ‘What does that even mean?’ But looking back, it makes sense. There were times when I was so manic I was writing seven songs in one night…that’s why I wasn’t happy when everything in my life was great. I’m being treated for it with medication and therapy.” People Magazine
Anne Hathaway
Anne told a sympathetic Ellen DeGeneres that she couldn’t put the words she’d read out of her mind when she was being cyberbullied.
“And then I realized why I couldn’t was I hadn’t learned to love myself yet. I hadn’t gotten there. And if you don’t love yourself when someone else says horrible things to you, part of you is always going to believe them. So, then I was like, okay, I don’t want to believe these people. I don’t want to agree with them on any level. I want to figure out who I am. I want to learn who I am. I don’t want to feel like I’m fragile every time I leave the house because I’m so dependent on what other people think about me. ‘I just took a step back, and as Matthew McConaughey, my co-star in Interstellar, would say, “I just kept living.” And, it’s been a really cool journey. ‘I feel like I arrived in a place where maybe not every minute of every day, but way more than I used to, I have a tremendous amount of love and compassion for everyone else. ‘And best of all I have it for myself, which I never enjoyed before.” The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Blake Shelton
“Don’t you just love bullies on line? Little chickens that have their laptops at home and they hide behind. It used to make me so mad. Now I know they’re the ones that we should feel sorry for.” The Voice
Mark Ruffalo
MARK should have had his HULK skills in High School 🙂
“When I was in high school I had cystic acne and was a little overweight.
People made fun of my last name all the time: Buffalo Breath, Buffalo Fart, Buffalo Lips. It was an ongoing buffalo joke.”
Taye Diggs
TAYE DIGGS – was called names?
“There was an incident where I was playing softball in gym class, and I went up to bat and the pitcher was a more popular kid in school. As he was pitching, he screamed out to the rest of the players on the field, “Nerd!” three times in a row, as loud as he could.” Jane
Tina Fey
“I was a mean girl. I had a gift for coming up with the meanest possible thing to say in any situation. Well, at my high school — a huge public school in a suburb of Philadelphia — there were a few girls who were kind of “famous.” Everyone knew who they were dating and what parties they went to. They weren’t the prettiest girls or the ones with money. They were just randomly anointed. I was an honor student, and I was in a ton of activities — the newspaper, drama club, the tennis team … My friends and I didn’t really date or go to cool parties, so we made jokes about those who did. To be honest, we felt kind of rejected, and when you don’t feel confident about yourself, you may look for flaws in somebody else to make you feel better. Looking back, I can see the mean-girl thing for what it is: a waste of energy. But that’s not much comfort if you’re the target. The hardest thing is to free yourself from caring what someone says about you. But it brings big freedom if you do it.”
Dating
Manny Jacinto
“Having a partner who doesn’t always say yes to you, who contradicts you in a good way, and who gives you criticism to improve yourself is always better than somebody who is a yes-woman who just agrees with you for the sake of agreeing.” -Cosmopolitan
Common
“A woman’s relationship with her father definitely affects how she is in relationships.” People Magazine
Penn Badgley
“I love being married [to musician Domino Kirke]- I’m so thankful to not be concerned with trying to intrigue and charm people. Our culture is enmeshed in trying to find a partner. And I think it has a lot less to do with finding the other person than with finding contentment in yourself.” Cosmopolitan Magazine
Jennifer Lopez

Ariana Grande

Miranda Cosgrove

Austin Butler

Nicole Kidman

Faith Hill

Patrick Schwarzenegger

Nicki Minaj

Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer’s: “The girl with the lower back tattoo.”
Faith Hill

People Magazine
Nick Jonas

George Clooney

Will Smith

Hunter Hayes

Chris Pine

Josh Hutcherson

Jason Derulo

Nev Schulman

Orlando Bloom

Adrian Grenier

Ed Sheeran

Jennifer Lopez

Keiynan Lonsdale
“I’m pretty shy. I think girls like it when you’re being yourself. You don’t need to be the coolest person in the world.” GL Magazine
Zac Efron
“I didn’t think much about settling down until recently. Now that I’m getting closer to my 30s, I’m around some great relationships and I’ve seen expert couples at work. I’m realizing that you have to find your own happiness before you can make somebody else happy.
I try to stay off my phone as much as possible. It’s on silent and the vibrate is off all day. People sometimes hate me for it! But I’m just not a pro at DMing and all that. Forget Twitter, forget Instagram. Let’s just chill and be real. Enjoy the moment.” Cosmopolitan Magazine
Matt Damon
Matt’s sage advice to us all
“It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.” Cosmo Men
Drew Barrymore
DREW BARRYMORE on happiness, body image, relationships and more
“I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven’t had anybody looking over me, and I’ve found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people.” Elle
In an article in the February 23 issue of People magazine when asked about her life after the house fire and the demise of her marriage to Tom Green, Drew said, “…..All of a sudden I was free to be exactly who I wanted to be rather than who I thought I had to be for anyone else or anything else.” Did you know that Drew was called “Fatso” by the boys when she was in school? Yes she was. When asked about her wild days of drinking she said, “…..I’d been suffocating myself with trying to be such a good person that I realized I was making myself miserable.” “…..I can feel beautiful on the inside-and I can tell that shows on the outside. It’s amazing to me.”
“Maybe it’s different for every person, but my personal downfall in a relationship is losing a sense of myself, getting too involved in their world and their opinions and their lifestyle. I always have to struggle to be my own person, whether it’s as stupid as what I like to eat for breakfast or as big as how to conduct myself as an individual. What’s saving me in this relationship is the fact that I feel like I’m remaining my own person.” She also said, “…..If we could just admit our faults, at least we could be human. I think what became more important to me was not how other people saw me but how I saw myself. I do run a company. I am consistent at work. My bosses think that I will show up on time, and I’m reliable to them. I can respect myself. That ended up becoming the important journey for me. And, of course, I’ll always be a bit of a ridiculous clown, ’cause I just can’t help it.” Glamour
“I think that it is so important to believe in yourself and believe in your empowerment and not wait for someone to rescue you and do it for you. That you can go out there and create it all for yourself.” In The Actor’s Studio
“During my teen years … I was awkward; I had braces; I was overweight. I was always teased. It’s so funny because it’s always those kids who get beaten up in school who end up triumphing. It’s almost like you need that to build character-even though it’s painful to go through it.” Teen People
John Mayer
JOHN can’t be with anyone who manipulates
“I couldn’t be with someone who uses manipulation to get what she wants. If you need my attention, just tell me. I’ll do the same.
And smoking. If she was trying to quit, that would be okay, but I couldn’t date someone who was oblivious to the fact that it’s a nasty habit. Cosmopolitan
Brad Pitt
Brad gives the secret on what girls should do to attract a guy:
“It’s a misconception that a girl has to do something to catch a guy’s attention. It just happens. There are no tricks. In fact, when you have to get tricky, it’s not worth it. You know what makes a guy take notice? If you don’t let him disrespect you. If some guy makes a stupid remark and a girl doesn’t let it get to her because she knows who she is – then she’s won. “
The reporter then asked Brad …What advice would you give teens about resisting peer pressure? He replied: “I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I believe in exploration-but smart exploration, not dangerous. If you’re feeling pressured to try certain things that don’t feel right to you, go with your gut instincts. It’ll never steer you wrong.” Teen People
Nelly
Nelly reveals how a girl can win him over
“…..Self-conscious people tend to throw things off because when you’re around them, you become uncomfortable, too. You become scared of saying something that might affect their vibe. If someone can laugh at themselves, you know you’re going to be able to get along with them.” Twist
Jason Dooley
Jason spills what he likes in a girl:
“A girl’s smile is always going to catch my attention. Every girl has a great smile, so if you just show it, I’ll notice it for for sure. But mostly it’s about being yourself. I don’t like it when girls try to be too funny or overly flirty.”
Enrique Iglesias
“I’m not keen on girls who are too snobby or arrogant-that’s a real turnoff for me. I really like girls who are natural and down to earth.” TWIST
Bruce Willis
When asked if he was dating anyone Bruce said, “No. I actually said these words aloud for the first time this year. I’m comfortable being alone. I’m comfortable being single. I may fall in love again, but-for those kids who are listening to Bruce Willis for love advice – any relationship that isn’t founded on friendship is just doomed.” People
Emotional Awareness
Willow Smith
I feel like being vulnerable is one of the first steps to opening your heart to people and letting them know that they can be vulnerable too. Because being vulnerable is power, I think. –Vanity Fair
Adele
“‘Learning to REALLY truly love yourself is it, and I’ve only just realized that that is more than enough.” -People
Ruby Rose Turner
“I focused on my work, my family, my friends. And I found myself being a lot happier. I made so many memories that week. I listened to music. In the car, instead of looking at my phone, I would look out the window. Just little things that you miss out on when you’re glued to social media.” -GL
Ruby Rose Turner
“There was bullying-just girls being nasty.” -GL
Ruby Rose Turner
“Kids my age like to grow up very fast, but I actually didn’t want to turn 13.” -GL
Kelly Clarkson
“I was really shy when I was little. We moved around, there was a divorce. I had total abandonment issues.” -People
Ava DuVernay
“A healthy amount of fear is a good thing. Let it drive you.” -Glamour
Viola Davis
“I empower her to understand that she has to count it all as joy. Even her mistakes, her failures, her triumphs, what she looks like, all of it. That’s all a part of her loving herself, even if none of those things change. So I just tell her she’s worth it. Even if I am combing her hair, and she’s crying… she does not have to be a perfect little girl. There’s no such thing. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and there’s strength in vulnerability.” -People
Viola Davis
“When I was a young scrappy girl growing up, I realized we were poor. But I was making my way through it. You either hope or you don’t. And it was hope and dreams that made me put my feet to the floor every morning and just approach every day with a sense of enthusiasm. It was my fight or flight that kicked in.” -People
Viola Davis
“I always feel like I have to go back and heal that little girl who grew up in poverty, who was called names and ‘ugly’ all the time. Until someone told me, “Maybe you need to let the little girl heal you at 54. Maybe you need to allow the little girl to be excited at the 54-year-old she gets to become.” Because actually, she did pretty good. She was a survivor. She got out of it. And it makes me look at my past completely differently when I see that.” -People
Zoey Deutch
“I came into this world with anxiety, I used to hold my breath from anxiety when I was a baby and it would make me faint. There are times when it is debilitating, and there are times when it makes me laugh. But I actually feel like my superpower is my anxiety. It’s one of my key motivators, and it’s at the center of my ambition.” -Cosmopolitan
Summer McKeen
“I don’t like to talk about negative things unless I can bring light to it in some way,” Summer says, “Life is too short to get caught up in negativity.” GL
Willow Smith
Cutting, she says now, provided “a physical release of all this intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.” But as she read about both science and spirituality, she says, “I was like, ‘This is pointless- my body is my temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I learned to see myself as worthy.” People Magazine
Common
“Everything can be overcome with love.” People Magazine
Common
“As stars, we put ourselves out there and act like everything is good, everything is perfect, but we all have wounds in our life. I want people to know that we all go through stuff. And we all need support and help.” People Magazine
Cloe Wilder

Julia Roberts

Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez

Zach Galifianakis

Ellen Degeneres

Gisele Buendchen

Rami Malek

Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer’s: “The girl with the lower back tattoo.”
Faith Hill

People Magazine
Queen Latifah

Oprah.com
Nigella Lawson

Storm Reid

Andrew Garfield

Jimmy Fallon

Salma Hayek

Mariska Hargitay

Selena Gomez

Jessica Williams

Will Smith

Miranda Kerr

Destiny Frasqueri aka Princess Nokia

Anna Lynne McCord

Taylor Swift

Austin Mahone

Michelle Obama

Demi Lovato

Steven Speilberg
“And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn’t know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and mentors take their place and explain how this world really works. And usually these voices of authority make sense, but sometimes, doubt starts to creep into our heads and into our hearts. And even when we think, ‘that’s not quite how I see the world,’ it’s kind of easier to just to nod in agreement and go along, and for a while, I let that going along define my character. Because I was repressing my own point of view, because like in that Nilsson song, ‘Everybody was talkin’ at me, so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind.’ And at first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable — kind of like me in high school. But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in. And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that. Because once I turned to my intuition, and I tuned into it, certain projects began to pull me into them, and others, I turned away from.” Spielberg’s 2016 Commencement speech to Harvard Grads
Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum was medicated for a learning disability when he was young.
“For a time, it would work well. Then it worked less and my pain was more. I would go through wild bouts of depression, horrible comedowns. I understand why kids kill themselves. I absolutely do. You feel terrible. You feel soul-less. I’d never do it to my child.” Esquire
Chris Evans
On meditation: “It was one of the most eye-opening expriences of my life. I had never really meditated before. I’d tried it, but I’d always been very aware of my thoughts. While I was over there [studying with a guru] you do it every day. And I really unlocked a little door in myself. My mind was really noisy, and I had a lot of questions. My guru would just say, ‘Chris, shhh.’ I had questions every five minutes. A lot of our sadness and fears – and suffering – is born out of this unnecessary constant narrative. The only reason the brain wants those questions is because it’s aware of the past, and it’s fearful of the future. The truth is, you are not your thoughts. If you are able to surrender and let your brain be quiet – just for a minute – a real sens of beauty emerges.” Elle Magazine
Christine Aguilera
CHRISTINA AGUILERA on healing your pain
“I’ve gotten rid of a lot of the angst I used to have. I’ve been able to heal a lot of the pain. It’s important to recognize your own self-destructive behavior and be honest about it. You’re only hurting yourself or losing out on your truth and happiness. I’m not afraid of facing my own personal stuff. It’s so important to dig it up and figure it out and move on. I enjoy real people, down-to-earth people who are true to themselves and honest to your face-good or bad.” CosmoGirl
Harvey Keitel
“I won’t let anyone tell my son not to cry. I don’t want anything to interfere with his expressing what he’s feeling. As a kid I was told to shush, and as a result it’s taken me a lifetime to be able to speak. I had to hide it – you hammer it down until you can’t think anymore, you can’t speak anymore, and your inner world is in retreat. You can’t function, and you stutter, which I did as a boy. You will stutter not only vocally, but inwardly. You will hesitate, you will fumble, you will futz, and you will deny the truth because the truth is too difficult to handle. It’s hard to select which situations to run away from once you become a runner, so you hide from everything.”
Overcoming Adversity
Viola Davis
“I empower her to understand that she has to count it all as joy. Even her mistakes, her failures, her triumphs, what she looks like, all of it. That’s all a part of her loving herself, even if none of those things change. So I just tell her she’s worth it. Even if I am combing her hair, and she’s crying… she does not have to be a perfect little girl. There’s no such thing. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and there’s strength in vulnerability.” -People
Viola Davis
“When I was a young scrappy girl growing up, I realized we were poor. But I was making my way through it. You either hope or you don’t. And it was hope and dreams that made me put my feet to the floor every morning and just approach every day with a sense of enthusiasm. It was my fight or flight that kicked in.” -People
Viola Davis
“I always feel like I have to go back and heal that little girl who grew up in poverty, who was called names and ‘ugly’ all the time. Until someone told me, “Maybe you need to let the little girl heal you at 54. Maybe you need to allow the little girl to be excited at the 54-year-old she gets to become.” Because actually, she did pretty good. She was a survivor. She got out of it. And it makes me look at my past completely differently when I see that.” -People
Taraji P. Henson

Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer’s: “The girl with the lower back tattoo.”
Queen Latifah

Oprah.com
Nigella Lawson

Gina Rodriguez

Andrew Garfield

Jimmy Fallon

Salma Hayek

Zendaya

Mary J Blige

Nelson Mandela

Tiffany Haddish

Camila Cabello

Destiny Frasqueri aka Princess Nokia

Anna Lynne McCord

Susan Boyle

America Ferrera

Blake Shelton

Austin Mahone

Alisha Zalkin
“I pray that one day we live in a world where we are encouraged to experience the full human emotional spectrum without shame, guilt, or judgment. Where we don’t have to fear our inner demons, darkness, and suffering, but rather hold one another in the space for true healing. A world where we can stop pretending life has to be perfect every damn day, and we can let down our walls and surrender to the truth. A world where we are encouraged to take the time to breathe deeply in silence without distractions, and connect to our light, because ‘the light gets in through the cracks.'” Facebook
Bethany Mota
“I want to tell everyone here that you are capable of so much. I used to limit myself all of the time and I would think of things that I wanted to do and I’d be like, ‘there’s no way that I can do that,’ and I’d dismiss the thought from my mind. But, making YouTube Videos is one of the things that I just went for and I’m like, ‘there’s no way anyone’s gonna wanna watch my videos, I’m way too weird.’ But I did it anyway and now I have this amazing community. I want to remind you that you are all strong and powerful so don’t allow anyone to limit you and most of all, never limit yourself because you’re incredible.” Teen Choice Awards
Eva Mendes
“…we can’t choose our family, but we can choose our friends. Surrounding myself with people who love and support me has been my key to success. Once I eliminated the negative people from my circle, I was ready to soar.” Seventeen Magazine
Arianna Huffington
“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a stepping stone to success. If our primary goal is to be approved of, then we are not going to take risks, we are not going to speak out, we are going to try to blend in.” The Conversation
Simon Cowell
“Every single negative can lead to a positive. Any negative situation …don’t get too down about it – you’ll work it out. You learn it as you go along. You don’t get smart at 17. You just don’t unless you’re one of a billion. It will happen over time and it’s the getting there which will be the most fun.” Master Class/OWN TV
Dianne Carroll
“If you are happy you attract happy people, and if you are unhappy you attract unhappy people.” Oprah Show
Hillary Swank
“I’m just a girl from a trailor park who had a dream.” 2005 Academy Awards acceptance speech
“There are things about my childhood that I regret, that my mom regrets, that my dad regrets, and I think that my brother regrets, which is that my parents were so troubled in their relationship that we were kind of neglected at times. The other side of my childhood so overshadows that, though, that it’s not something I tend to bring up. Ultimately, my parents did the best they could. A lot of people hold on to something not being the way they think it should’ve been, and they’re messed up because of it. And what’s sad about that is that life will be over for your parents one day, and you can be left with what you could have made of the relationship, but didn’t. My dad wasn’t in my life very much when I was growing up, but I decided that I didn’t want his life to be over and for me to say, “Oh, if I’d only grown up I could’ve had an adult relationship with him.” I’m so glad I have my dad in my life right now. Interview
“One of the first producers I worked with told me I had a horrible forehead and my lips were too big.” US Weekly
LGBTQ
Andrew Garfield

Nelson Mandela

Chris Colfer

Miley Cyrus

Portia De Rossi

Daniel Radcliffe

Halsey

Bella Thorne

Ansel Elgort

Anne Hathaway

Ellen Page

Ellen Degeneres

John Barrowman
“I knew at a very young age that I was gay. I was walking back to my locker and this kid caught up to me and he called me “fag”, punched me in the face, shoved me in the locker and shut the door. What do you do? You’re mortified, you’re embarrassed, you just think, what do I tell my mom and dad?”
Barrowman eventually stood up to his bully.
“You can hit me, you can punch me, and you can bully me and do everything you want. Punch me in the face as many times you want, but I will always get back up.”
Barrowman cautions that you shouldn’t try to do it alone.
“You have to find people around you to support you, right? Your friends. Your family. We all love super heroes. Why not be one? So make a stand for who you are and make a stand for someone else.” CBS8.com
Ellen Degeneres
On the 20th Anniversary of Ellen’s coming out episode:
“No matter what the cost is at the time, it is always important that whoever the essence of us is, we are born individually, we are all unique, and we are supposed to be that exact person. We’re not supposed to conform. We’re not supposed to be like somebody else. As long as you stay true to exactly who are are, you will be rewarded in ways that you can’t imagine.” Ellen Degeneres Show
Miley Cyrus
“My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and sexuality. I always hated the word ‘bisexual’ … I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or being a girl” PEOPLE
Self Esteem
Spencer Barbosa
“I’m my biggest bully, my biggest hater. But those rude things I say to myself? I would never say them to my friends. Self-love is talking to yourself with compassion, accepting that you’re not going to feel your best every single day and just learning from that.” – GL Magazine
Tyler Perry
In reference to sexual abuse, Tyler Perry stated, “It was rape, I didn’t know what was going on or the far-reaching effects of it. I just moved through it. ‘Boys don’t cry, shut up and move on.’ Holding on to all of that, not knowing what to do with it, there was a lot of anger in my teenage years, in my 20s. If any of it had worked, my attempts to kill myself…. I wouldn’t have gotten to the other side of all the horror. I believe that to everything there is an opposite. So for all of that pain and hell I was going through as a child, there has to be beauty. I tell anyone who is in pain, ‘Just keep going. One little step is a step.'” -People
Solange Van Doorn
“My mom is a girl from New York, and my dad is a strong, sturdy Dutchman. I grew up with dual citizenship, and I still don’t have a grasp on American beauty standards. It used to be about having blonde hair, blue eyes, skinny-girl stuff, but now it’s like if you are true to yourself and an individual, you’re beautiful. As a girl who’s happiest in an oversize T-shirt and seawater in my hair, I’m pleased with that.” -Allure
Dara Allen
“American beauty for me is very much about that transformation from something you are into something you dream of being. Hollywood invented the movie star, which takes a person from normalcy and makes them into something extraordinary. You take whatever ingredients you have and make what you want to be.” -Allure
Breck Gambill
“I’m a bohemian type of person, but to me [American beauty] is being a strong-minded human who makes her own decisions-being able to plan your own life and live to please anyone but yourself.” -Allure
Venus Williams
“Growing up, I was taught that if I saw something that wasn’t right, I had to do something, say something, and not censor myself.” -Glamour
Brie Larson
“It’s about being open to asking the tough questions, having the courage to implement changes and putting your privilege on the line.”
Taraji P. Henson
“To remind students every day they are worthy, that they are beautiful.” -People
Angelina Jolie
“You can always put on a pretty dress, but it doesn’t matter what you wear on the outside if your mind isn’t strong enough. There is nothing more attractive-you might even say enchanting-than a woman with an independent will and her own opinions.” -Elle
Angelina Jolie
“Who we are meant to be in life is something we all have to work out for ourselves. I think we can often go offtrack as women, because our instinct is to nurture or to adjust ourselves to society’s expectations. It can be hard to take the time to ask ourselves who we truly want to be- not what we think people will approve of or accept, but who we really are. But when you listen to yourself, you can make the choice to step forward and learn and change.” -Elle
Viola Davis
“In the beginning of my career, I handled rejection by personalizing it. For me, people were just cementing what I felt like I already knew about myself: that I wasn’t attractive.” -People
Viola Davis
“If I could tell my 13-year-old self anything, I would tell he that she was enough. I wasted so much time listening to the naysayers. An I just wish I had listened to the other voices of people saying that I was beautiful and talented. I always thought that when you listen to that you were conceited, but I wish I had listened to that more. I wish I has pranced through the world with just hoity-toity confidence and overexuberance.” -People
Viola Davis
“I’m definitely teaching Genesis that beauty is within. I mean, we have got to get past physical beauty, selfies, even though I’ve taken a selfie in my day. But I always say, ‘Genesis, your heart and your head are the two most important parts of you.’ The physical falls away. The things that you can take with you that really are of value have nothing to do with the physical.” -People
Zoey Deutch
“I came into this world with anxiety, I used to hold my breath from anxiety when I was a baby and it would make me faint. There are times when it is debilitating, and there are times when it makes me laugh. But I actually feel like my superpower is my anxiety. It’s one of my key motivators, and it’s at the center of my ambition.” -Cosmopolitan
Lady Gaga
“Your head is telling you lies, don’t believe them, you know the truth-and you’re beautiful, from the inside out. And the inside is actually what matters most.” -People
Laura Linney
“You learn more from failing than you do from succeeding. It’s important to befriend failure; it’s not pleasant, and it’s painful, but it’s necessary to grow. I wish everyone a manageable failure at one point in life. You learn about grit and how to pull yourself out of a tough situation. Then, hopefully, you get things that are good.” -AARP
Lil Key

Usher

Aidy Bryant

Henry Winkler

Mary Lambert

Vanessa Hudgens

“If you can shift your perspective on a negative thing, it’s possible to turn it into a positive.”
Issa Rae

Jameela Jamil

Jojo Siwa

Luke Perry

Lady Gaga

Maria Bello

Selena Gomez

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Anne Hathaway

Ashley Greene

Steve Carrell

Meryl Streep

Demi Lovato

Abbie Cornish

Halle Berry

Lady Gaga

Mandy Moore

Candice Huffine

Halsey

Winnie Harlow

Mackenzie Ziegler

Daniella Perkins

Ginger Zee

Tan France

Bobby Berk

Jason Momoa

Jennifer Garner

Bryce Dallas Howard

Drake

Amy Poehler

Emma Stone

Demi Lovato

Tyra Banks

Sarah Hyland

Drake

Alex Molina

Lady Gaga

Janet Jackson

Gisele Buendchen

Suzanne Somers

Ariana Grande

Justin Theroux

Penelope Cruise

Cate Blanchett

Ciara

Demi Moore

Jonah Hill

Sabrina Carpenter

Mindy Kaling
“In my career, a lot of people have a problem with being around women who don’t hate themselves. Never hate yourself.”
Anne Hathaway

Angelina Jolie

Nicki Minaj

Paula Patton

Melissa McCarthy

Emmy Rossum

Gal Gadot

Priyanka Chopra

Kelly Clarkson

Pink

Mandy Moore

Hugh Jackman

Mandy Moore

Jonathan Van Ness

Jonathan Van Ness People Magazine
Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer’s: “The girl with the lower back tattoo.”
Nigella Lawson

Gina Rodriguez

Storm Reid

Tom Brady

Salma Hayek

Selena Gomez

Melissa McCarthy

Gina Rodriguez

Zendaya

Janis Joplin

Mary J Blige

Gal Gadot

Coco Chanel

Miranda Kerr

Mandy Hale

Halsey

Hunter Hayes

Emma Stone

Tiffany Haddish

Olesya

Paris Jackson

Katy Perry

Michael Sam

Anna Lynne McCord

Taylor Swift

Danielle Brooks

Misty Copeland

Nev Schulman

Kofi Siriboe

Adrian Grenier

Bella Thorne

Bella Thorne

Ansel Elgort

Amy Poehler

Michelle Obama

Jennifer Lopez

Kerry Washington

Missy Elliott

Adele

Taraji Henson

Alicia Keys

Constance Wu

“There are so many other ways , besides body type, to create your self worth. Kindness, intelligence, wit, talent – this list goes on. I think that’s why, as teens we try on different archetypal personalities to see what fits: the jock, the goth, the prom queen. It’s also where we find community.” Cosmopolitan Magazine
Halle Berry
“When I was a kid, my mother told me that if you can’t be a good loser, you can’t be a good winner. If you can’t take criticism,
then you don’t deserve the praise.” Razzies Awards
Don Miquel Ruiz and Don Ruiz, in “The Fifth Agreement”
“If your beliefs are telling you, “I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m old. I’m a loser. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’ll never make it,” then don’t believe yourself, because it’s not true. These messages are distorted. They’re nothing but lies. Once you can see the lies, you don’t have to believe them. Use the power of doubt to challenge every message that you deliver to yourself. “Is it really true that I’m ugly? Is it really true that I’m not good enough?” Is this message real, or is it virtual? Of course it’s virtual. None of these messages come from the truth, from life; they come from distortions in our knowledge. The truth is, there are no ugly people. There is no good enough or strong enough. There’s no universal book of law where any of these judgments are true. These judgments are just agreements that humans make.
Can you see the consequences of believing yourself? Believing yourself is one of the worst things you can do because you’ve been telling yourself lies your whole life, and if you believe all those lies, that’s why your dream isn’t a pleasant dream.” From the book, “The Fifth Agreement”
Hailee Steinfeld
“It’s easy to get caught up in what other people have to say about you – and I have myself – but you can’t please everybody. If you’re happy, that all that really matters.
As long as I love what I’m wearing and feel great in it, then there’s no reason to care what anybody else thinks. If you go out and feel comfortable and confident, you can rock anything and people will see that. And if they don’t, then it’s their own opinion.” People Magazine
Barbra Streisand
“I was an ugly duckling and a loner. I was known as the kid who had a good voice and no father. My mother laughed at my ambition. She never hugged me or said words like, ‘I love you.’ I never would have ended up doing what I’m doing. I owe her my career. I was always trying to prove to her that I was worthy of being somebody. If you don’t feel loved as a child, you spend your life trying to get that love. People who have two parents who love them are very lucky. They are not left with a hole to fill. You have to fill it with yourself, eventually.” CLOSER
Pharrell Williams
“You should not find confidence outside of your mirror.” Prime on OWN TV
Lupita Nyongo
“You can’t eat beauty, it doesn’t feed you…beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion–for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul.”
Kelly Clarkson
“If somebody says, ‘I don’t like something about you,’ I’m just like, ‘You know what? I’ve been hurt so incredibly deeper than what you’re saying, and I survived. So I’m good.’ You can’t count on your self-worth being tied to someone else.” People Magazine
Taylor Swift
“I’m pretty pale. In high school I was insecure and thought it’d be cool to go to a tanning bed. Now I just let it look the way it looks.” People Magazine
Daryl Hannah
“I no longer have time for unnecessary drama. I wasted so much time scared, self-conscious and insecure. Life is too short to stress the small things anymore.” People Magazine
Debby Ryan
“Hollywood is like high school, there are always going to be people who hate you and people who like you. When you’re a teen, that’s tough because you’re hyper-aware of what other people are gonna say and think. But neither defines who you are as a person or how successful you are unless you let them.” GL Magazine
Beyonce
“Independence comes from you knowing who you are and you being happy with yourself.” Life Is But A Dream
Bridgit Mendler
“I grew up having to care what people think; it was part of my job. I’ve been built up and torn down, built up and torn down. It’s been difficult to tune people out, especially in the last few years. Now I’m starting to care more about me and not what everybody else thinks.” People Magazine
Leann Rimes
“I grew up having to care what people think; it was part of my job. I’ve been built up and torn down, built up and torn down. It’s been difficult to tune people out, especially in the last few years. Now I’m starting to care more about me and not what everybody else thinks.” People Magazine
Katy Perry
“I’ve realized that it’s time for me to show my audience that you don’t have to be perfect to achieve your dreams.
I’m okay with having bad dance moves. I’m okay with having horrible lower teeth.
That’s what makes me me, and for some reason it’s worked out all right. Parade Magazine
Portia De Rossi
“If your self-esteem really does depend on how you look you’re always going to be insecure. There’s no way you can get around it because you are going to age. Even if you get that perfect body you’re going to get older and older and older. You can’t avoid it. So you have to somehow, at some point, take control and shift the focus and decide that who you are, what you can contribute to the world, what you do and say, is so much more important than how you look.” The Conversation
Peter Facinelli
“I was so shy. Instead of waiting in line with the other kids at lunch, I’d go to a corner and buy a pretzel and orange juice. I think I had that for lunch the first three years of high school” Redbook Magazine
Haley Williams
“I was new, and it was like that movie Mean Girls. This clique would tease me and make up rumors about me being gay. I don’t even know why they did it. I came home crying one day and told my mom I couldn’t be around them anymore. So we decided I would be home schooled.
I think it’s important to check in with yourself and make sure you are being exactly who you want to be. When I am true to who I am, I’m a better girlfriend. I’m just more happy being me.” Cosmopolitan Magazine
India Arie
“One of the things that I’ve worked my way out of doing, and I knew that I needed to, was comparing myself to other people. That just poisons everything. It all of a sudden determines even clothes you’re going to choose to wear that day or what you’re going to do with the a music production or how you’re going to sequence it. It poisons everything. Your real job in the world is to be you. Comparing yourself to other people I think that hurt me more than anything. Allowing myself to go there so much in my head hurt me.
Your self-worth is your job. It’s your sacred space to cultivate cause there’s always going to be somebody who comes along and says you’re not thin enough or your hair’s not ‘that’ enough or your voice’s not high enough, you’re not going to make it in the music industry because you don’t sound like all the others. There always has to be somebody who comes along and says something like that but if you can remind yourself that they’re wrong because you know your own path and you can just remind yourself. And one of the things I do know after all the healing work I’ve done is I sit in my journal or my meditation time what would I do about this thing, whatever it is – sometimes I think it’s an opportunity I’m not ready for – sometimes it somebody telling me that I can’t or I’m not worthy – and I sit in my private space and I say, I really just play it all out- I can visualize it or I write it – and I say …What would I do if I knew I was 100% worthy of this? What would I do?” Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey
Emma Stone
“I’ve learned that you have to stay true to yourself from all the amazing people I’ve had the opportunity to work with thus far. You have to stay true to yourself and don’t be afraid even though people may say what you’re doing isn’t cool or isn’t right. I promise you, you will not regret it if you stay true to who you are and what you love to do because there is no other reason that I am up here today receiving this award.” People’s Choice Awards
Taylor Lautner
“I was viewed as a little bit of an outcast. I didn’t have one group of friends who I hung out with every single day. I would have friends on my football team, friends in drama, friends in video production, and I would hang out with different people. I know that wasn’t the normal thing to do in high school. The normal thing is to be in a group or be a part of a clique. But for me, I love hanging out with different people and just having fun. I believe in the saying, ‘If you aim at nothing, you’re going to hit nothing.’ So if you don’t set goals, then you have nowhere to go. I guess winning an Oscar is the ultimate dream. A lot of amazing actors go their whole career without even being nominated. So that would definitely be a goal to reach. It’s a difficult one, but I’m aiming for it!” Seventeen Magazine
George Clooney
“I was a baseball player in school. I had a good arm, I could catch anything, but I was having trouble hitting. I would be like, ‘I wonder if I’ll hit it; just let me hit the ball.’ And then I went away for the fall, learned how to hit, and by my sophomore year I’d come to the plate and think, ‘I wonder where I want to hit the ball, to the left or right?’ Just that little bit of skill and confidence changed everything. Well, I had to treat acting like that. I had to stop going to auditions thinking, ‘Oh, I hope they like me.’ I had to go in thinking I was the answer to their problem. You could feel the difference in the room immediately. The greatest lesson I learned was that sometimes you have to fake it. And you have to be willing to fail.” Parade Magazine
Victoria Justice
“In high school I became a target for some people who thought I had changed when I got on a TV show-it’s very easy for people to find things wrong with you. In high school, popularity is so much about going to the right parties and hanging out with the in crowd and looking a certain way. I went to a big public school with a lot of people, and I had a small group of friends who I was comfortable with. I wanted to hang out with people who are good and honest. If popular means being one of the girls who are obsessed with looking good all the time and having lots of boys like them, I don’t want to hang out with those people. That’s being immature and stupid. Why would anyone want to isolate themselves from people who you could potentially learn something from and be friends with? I think cliques are ridiculous.” Seventeen Magazine
Ellen Degeneres
“It feels good to be chosen but there was a time in my life that I was not chosen. I was the opposite of chosen because I was different. I want to make sure that everyone knows: WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT RIGHT NOW MAKES YOU STAND OUT LATER IN LIFE. So you should be proud of who you are! Embrace who are because being unique is very, very important and fitting in is not really all that matters.” Teen Choice Awards
Bethany Mota
“I want to tell everyone here that you are capable of so much. I used to limit myself all of the time and I would think of things that I wanted to do and I’d be like, ‘there’s no way that I can do that,’ and I’d dismiss the thought from my mind. But, making YouTube Videos is one of the things that I just went for and I’m like, ‘there’s no way anyone’s gonna wanna watch my videos, I’m way too weird.’ But I did it anyway and now I have this amazing community. I want to remind you that you are all strong and powerful so don’t allow anyone to limit you and most of all, never limit yourself because you’re incredible.” Teen Choice Awards
Shailene Woodley
“One day I was having one of my teenage crisis, when you think everything’s falling apart-your estrogen and progesterone are freaking out. And my grandmother said, ‘Shai, the most important thing in life is self-love. You’ve gotta take care of yourself and you’ve gotta live from your deep heart.’ I’ve come to determine that deep heart is my compassion, empathy and intuition. Because your intuition never wants to be mean to somebody. You intuitively know that another human being on this planet is hurting just as badly as you may be. The way that they express themselves could be rude or seen as douche or whatnot. But maybe they’re scared or had no one there to support them.” ELLE Magazine
Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz
“If your beliefs are telling you, ‘m fat. I’m ugly. I’m old. I’m a loser. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’ll never make it,’ then don’t believe yourself, because it’s not true. These messages are distorted. They’re nothing but lies. Once you can see the lies, you don’t have to believe them. Use the power of doubt to challenge every message that you deliver to yourself. ‘Is it really true that I’m ugly? Is it really true that I’m not good enough?’ Is this message real, or is it virtual? Of course it’s virtual. None of these messages come from the truth, from life; they come from distortions in our knowledge. The truth is, there are no ugly people. There is no good enough or strong enough. There’s no universal book of law where any of these judgments are true. These judgments are just agreements that humans make.
Can you see the consequences of believing yourself? Believing yourself is one of the worst things you can do because you’ve been telling yourself lies your whole life, and if you believe all those lies, that’s why your dream isn’t a pleasant dream.” Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz, in “The Fifth Agreement”
Muiccia Prada
“UGLY IS attractive. Ugly is exciting to me. The investigation of ugliness is, to me, more interesting that the bourgeois idea of beauty. And why? Because ugly is human.” New York Times
Ellen DeGeneres
When asked if she read about herself on the internet Ellen said, “Never. Never have. I don’t see any good or bad whatever people say about me. There’s a phrase, ‘What you think of me is none of my business.’ And I really feel like that. If I’m going to buy into ‘People Love me!’ then I have to buy into ‘”People hate me!’ So I just have to like myself and not care what people think. Usually if they don’t lie you, it has nothing to do with you.”
“I cry easily. I think it’s important to have lots of different emotions. You have to feel every bit of it, or else you are missing out.” PEOPLE
Anna Kendrick
“I gave up on being nice. I stared putting more value on other qualities instead: passion, bravery, intelligence, practicality, humor, patience, fairness, sensitivity. Those last three might seem like they are covered by “nice,” but make no mistake, they are not. A person who smiles a lot and remembers everyone’s birthday can turn out to be undercover crazy, a compulsive thief, and boring to boot. I don’t put a lot of stock in nice. I’d prefer to be around people who have any of the above qualities over “niceness,” and I’d prefer it if that applied to me, too. I’m also okay if the most accurate description of me is salty. But a least I know what I want to strive for.:” PEOPLE
Gia Coppola
“When I was a teenager I was so ready to grow up. Anything that was mainstream didn’t interest me, and now I want to see all of the Twilight movies and feel like I’m a kid again. Even as an adult, I’m insecure about so many things, and you have to do what feels good to you in the moment.” “Teen Vogue
Dane Cook
DANE COOK on the little friend in his pocket
“I couldn’t get a date to the prom. Now I change my name when I check into hotels.
I used to go by Zang Kudrow who was an action figure I kept in my pocket when I felt shy at school. I knew he was in there, like my buddy.” In Style
Halle Berry
Halle felt she was ugly
“A magical thing happened when I turned 40 – a light sort of went off, and I felt more self-assured and confident, like I finally had the right to be authentic about who I am, to say what I want to say. I guess that comes with getting older. Now I’m at this point in my life where I’m happy with myself. It’s not because I have a really cute boyfriend or a great career, I just feel good about me. And if any one of those things should dissipate, I’d still be OK. That feels like a really good place to be.
Halle didn’t always feel this way. After she was voted one of the world’s sexiest women she said she still doesn’t see herself as a big star. “To be totally honest, most of the time I think I’m ugly. I see myself without make-up every morning and that’s why I don’t have illusions any more. I certainly don’t feel like a big star.” Journal fur die Frau
“When I was a kid, my mother told me that if you can’t be a good loser, you can’t be a good winner. If you can’t take criticism, then you don’t deserve the praise.” Razzie Awards
Angelina Jolie
Angelina on how to feel beautiful and strong
“I’ve often felt unattractive or different looking. As I’ve grown up, I’ve felt more comfortable in my own skin. It may sound cliche, but when you feel beautiful and strong on the inside, it shows on the outside.” Teen People
Sandra Bullock
“I hated my whole childhood, hated it, hated it, hated it. There was no place for me. I was not accepted here. I was noticeably different. I was awkward. I was in the wrong clothes. I would get the sh_t kicked out of me constantly. My mother would be like, ‘That’s ridiculous. Why would anyone do that?’ I’m coming home with my hair a mess, crying. Finally a guidance counselor came to my house and said, ‘We have a problem. They are picking on her, and I don’t know what to do about it.’ And I was so angry at my mother. She was like, ‘Obviously something you are doing.’ … I’m so thankful for it now because it definitely gives you the empathetic view of humanity.” Vogue
“Realizing that conforming didn’t accomplish anything. I was so preppy-everything was monogrammed and everything had to match. It was such a stress. Being popular was so much work! Do your own thing. As long as you learn that, you’re cool.” Teen People
Melissa Etheridge
MELISA ETHERIDGE reveals what she’s glad she learned to let go
“Fear. And the sense that I am not good enough-not good enough for my partner, my career, my kids. Before, I needed to make everybody else feel good, so nobody would look at me. I’d take on everybody’s problems and make their life happy, so they didn’t see I wasn’t good enough. Now I can go to a photo shoot with 70 zillion people, and I don’t have to make them think I’m the greatest. I can just be myself and trust that I’m okay.” Life
Phylicia Rashad
Phylicia says STOP looking for approval
“Don’t be preoccupied with looking for approval from other people. You’re never going to be anybody but who you are. And who you are is greater than you imagine. The way that you think creates our reality. It’s very powerful. I would say to a young girl who is feeling insecure about her looks to stop. Who you are is not the way you look; who you are is who you are on the inside. And there is not a mirror in the world that can show you that. It is beautiful, it is amazing, it is awesome.’ Oprah Show
Madonna
MADONNA has fears too:
“Oh sure, I’ve got lots of fears. My job is to conquer my fears. The irony of being a performer is that I have huge insecurities. People are shocked to hear that I think my legs are fat or I don’t like the way I look. We all have insecurities. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t. I’m so not the Material Girl now. There were many years when I thought fame, fortune, and public approval would bring me happiness. But one day you wake up and realize they don’t. Each of us is responsible for everything that happens in our lives. When good things happen — we win an award, meet the love of our lives, or get a promotion – we take ownership of that. But when bad things happen-we get fired or we divorce-we often don’t take responsibility. We call it something that just happened. I now understand that just as we can draw the positive, we can draw the negative.”
When asked what she knew for sure, Madonna said, “That there are no mistakes or accidents. That consciousness is everything and that all things begin with a thought. That we are responsible for our own fate, we reap what we sow, we get what we give, we pull in what we put out.” O Magazine
SALEISHA
SALEISHA wants you to be who you are
“My freshman year I went through a phase when I would think some girl was much prettier than me. Like, she’s skinnier, she’s taller, she has prettier eyes. I didn’t hate myself, but I didn’t feel that I was pretty. But at the end of the day, you can’t change who you are. You can’t go to sleep at night and wake up tomorrow perfectly beautiful. You just have to give what you got, and if [the world] doesn’t want it, then they can leave it. Seventeen
Eminem
Eminem on judging people:
“…you gotta learn to judge people for the individuals that they are.” Cosmo Girl
Julianne Moore
Julianna on imperfections:
“I think imperfections are important, just as mistakes are important. You only get to be good by making mistakes, and you only get to be real by being imperfect.” Glamour
Cher
“I’m the girl who everyone said was never going anywhere. I guess I shocked a few people, but deep down I don’t feel like I’m there yet either.
I’m still just going day to day. I’m just doing my thing.” Chicago Sun-Times
Sally Field
Sally talks about her low-self-esteem:
“Many people must have looked at my life and thought I was quite fortunate. But I felt lousy about myself–and as you now know, I didn’t come from a place where I had a lot of self-confidence. In my late 50s I began to embrace myself in a way that I hadn’t been able to before. I find that I’m not as worried anymore about what other people think. That’s a comfortable place to be. And I’m starting to let go of the feeling that I need to push myself to do things. I don’t want to do–an impulse that has always been linked to the feeling that I’m not enough. If you’re busy thinking, Gosh, I’m not pretty or smart enough, your spirit is undernourished. The minute you tell yourself, I’m never going to feel those things again, you stop growing because you’re too busy armoring yourself.” O Magazine
Cindy Crawford
“…I am my true self in my marriage. I don’t have to act or pretend I like football. I’m secure enough that if Rande wants to go out and I don’t, I say ‘Go and have a good time.’ Before, I might have either wanted him to stay or else I would go just to keep an eye on him.” Lifetime Magazine
Christina Applegate
“I’ve seen things written that are really hurtful to me and very painful. I like to look on our ABC blog for feedback on the show. It is supposed to be [a place for people] to talk about the episodes, not about whether I look old. I had one person say I needed to start wearing a bra, and now all I’m doing is thinking about my boobs and if they’re saggy. But I just think, Oh, c’mon, Christina! You have to let go and know who you really are. I don’t mind my flaws. When you’re younger, it feels like the end of the world if you make a mistake or if you have a zit. Now it’s like, Who cares? Just try to be happy. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to other people. Do good work. Be professional. All those things are really important.
I’m a big yes-I-will-do-whatever-you-want, people pleasing person, which I think is left over from my youth. I grew up really quickly. I had to be incredibly responsible and show up to work on time and be focused and clear. But now I know what’s going to push me too hard, and I don’t want to be taken advantage of. In this business, you’re treated like you’re a superwoman who can do everything, and you can’t. You’ve got to be able to take time for yourself. So I definitely try to say ‘No’ more. Recently, one of my friends said, ‘You need to get out of your house.’ But why? I’ve got everything I need here. I have my animals. I have a refrigerator. I have my pool. My favorite thing to do is play with my dogs and cats. I think it’s important to have time to reflect and be quiet and just think. I enjoy my alone time. Self
“The truth is, I was the ugly, dorky duckling growing up. Even when I would do the show [Married With Children], I would walk away wearing baggy clothes. I was just so under-confident in what I looked like. I never looked in the mirror and never thought that I was a pretty girl. Boys never hit on me. I really wanted to be that hoochie mama in the club, the one that guys all wanted to look at and grab, but I just could not be that person.”
Alfre Woodard
“When I was growing up in Tulsa, the kids called me bubble lips and frog eyes. My mama always said, “Oh, you’re such a pretty girl,” and I believed I was, thanks to her encouragement. Still, this was before the “black is beautiful” era of the 1970s, and everything around me seemed to negate my particular look – especially movies. The screen is one of the most influential tools in our lives, and if you don’t see yourself represented it’s almost as if you don’t exist. As I got older, I was drawn to the power and possibility for healing that cinema and the theater offered the world, and even though I didn’t resemble the typical actress – or maybe because of it – I moved to Hollywood. At auditions I was constantly told that I looked too much like an African and not enough like an African-American. I thought, this is as African-American as you get – my family has been here for 400 years! The hues of America were not being celebrated. Instead, everybody was trying to fit a homogeneous image. Then in 1986, I traveled to Zimbabwe for the first time to shoot the TV movie Mandela. I felt as if I’d been given a pure shot of oxygen. Suddenly, I was part of the dominant culture. I saw people like me. They had round faces and large eyes, with skin so warm and lips so full that I almost wanted to kiss strangers. I’d been living in Los Angeles, a world full of cubic zirconias, and here I was in the land of deep, rich-colored, genuine gemstones. I felt organically beautiful for the first time in my life. It may sound immodest, but I realized that my presence in movies gives that same validation to other young black women. They can feel free to walk their walk, swing their hips, and flash their smiles because they see themselves up on the screen. Everybody has a part of her body that she doesn’t like, but I’ve stopped complaining about mine because I don’t want to critique nature’s handiwork. There’s no such thing as imperfection. My job is simply to allow the light to shine out of the masterpiece.” O Magazine
Sexiness
Manny Jacinto
“Having a partner who doesn’t always say yes to you, who contradicts you in a good way, and who gives you criticism to improve yourself is always better than somebody who is a yes-woman who just agrees with you for the sake of agreeing.” -Cosmopolitan
Nick Jonas

Jason Derulo

Kerry Washington

Rachel Bilson
Rachel on sexiness
“The guy has to be funny. He can be Screech, but if he makes you laugh, you’re like – You’re kind of cute. Cosmopolitan
“It doesn’t matter how good-looking a guy is, it just depends on his personality. If a guy can make you laugh and make fun of you, that’s what wins me over.” TWIST
Javier Bardem
Javier reveals what he finds attractive:
For me, the most attractive woman is the person who is at peace with herself. No matter how good that person looks, when I see somebody at peace, that is sexy to me. Parade
Virginia Madsen
Virginia on sexiness
“Real sexiness comes from within. If you punish yourself for all of your flaws, you will never feel or seem sexy at all.
Love yourself and celebrate your body.” O Magazine
John Cusack
JOHN CUSACK explains what he thinks is sexy:
“Almost everything about women is sexy. But it’s just the person, the way they are, the way they move across a room. Sometimes it’s confidence, a kind of attitude. The most sexy people I know are the ones who have the guts to just be themselves. It’s hard to find people like that in Hollywood. If somebody is putting on an act, it’s a sideshow that doesn’t last.” Cosmopolitan