Queen Latifah regrets using alcohol to get through tough times in the past.
The 43-year-old 'Joyful Noise' actress has learnt to focus on "accentuating the positive" but spent years drinking to numb her pain after she was involved in a violent carjacking in 1995, in which her friend was shot and almost died.
The chat show host told the January issue of Good Housekeeping magazine: "Drinking a bunch of alcohol, numbing myself. Every day I would be faded, like a painting that's just not vibrant, whose edges are dull. I wasn't living my full life."
The 'Chicago' star also confessed her life was "rocked to the core" when her older brother, Lancelot Jr., crashed a motorcycle, which she gave him as a gift, and died in 1992.
Queen added: "I think I got to that place by not being happy with the other side -- hating your body and criticising yourself all the time. When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, 'You're either going to love yourself or hate yourself.' And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things."
The curvaceous star has worked hard not to let Hollywood stereotypes bother her.
She explained: "For a lot of the things I've wanted to do in life, I haven't looked typical. I was not born a size 2. I'm not skinny, period. I'm not willing to sleep with the director or step on somebody else's neck to get the job."
Tagged in Queen Latifah