Brandy Norwood

To be on this set today, I feel very blessed for the second chance and for the opportunity, my record company believing in me and everybody here just showing me so much love and support.

Now that the baby is coming, I will do a lot more balancing. I’m going to be a real mommy.

All my favorite stars, my family and my friends are here. I’m having the happiest birthday that an 18-year-old girl could ever have.

I’ve been gone for a long time. I really want to give the fans something that they deserve to have. So, I’m working really hard on this. I really want to make it the best work I’ve done so far.

I’m going to let people know that it’s cool to have a child and be young and still be a good mom. It’s really tough, but I’m doing it.

I can’t believe Tina Turner actually was on the same stage. I can’t believe I set foot on the same stage, and it’s going to be an album, people are going to buy it, and it’s going to be a video.

You must not look into that mirror at your doughy legs and flat feet. For today is about dreams and illusions, and unfiltered natural daylight is the enemy of dreams.

It’s strange, somebody asked for my autograph the other day. Because I finished school and I’m not really doing anything at the moment, I was just kind of aimlessly wandering around London and these two guys who were about 30 came up and asked for my autograph. I was really quite proud at the time, and they wanted to take photos and stuff. And then they were sort of wandering around and I was kind of wandering around and I bumped into them about three times, and every single time their respect for me kept growing and growing and growing.

I think it’s easier for the general public to embrace me in a negative way. You have people who already have a perception of me that says I’m a bad person.

2016… falls well below my standards of quality!

I haven’t really decided to be an actor yet! I started doing plays when I was about 15 or 16. I only did it because my dad saw a bunch of pretty girls in a restaurant and he asked them where they came from and they said drama group. He said “Son, that is where you need to go”.

Just keep taking chances and having fun.

Everybody has forgotten about showmanship. People don’t look like rock stars any more. They just look like regular dudes off the street.

I picked up a guitar and found it very difficult and I sort of graduated to drums because I found them very easy – I suppose it was a case of natural aptitude. Mitch Mitchell was my role model at the time, and I still think listening to Mitch Mitchell, especially the early stuff with Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix), is just fantastic.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

There are always going to be ridiculous rumors.

Cats know, comin’ out of four, they better be standin’ on it, else they’ll be standin’ in it.

In my neighborhood if you’re too aggressive, you intimidate someone, they kill you. Or if you decide to be emotional and you start crying, you’re a victim. You know, the kid in the schoolyard that doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. You have to find a way to stay in the middle, somewhere where people just don’t mess with you because they know that you don’t have a problem with it if it goes there.

There wasn’t much sex and drugs… well, there wasn’t much drugs!

Maybe my fairytale has a different ending than I dreamed it would. But that’s OK.

So when I come across as being everybody’s mate and nice and humble, I’m only nice and humble to a certain degree; the other side of me is arrogantly determined to do what the f**k I want.