They did it to try and belittle me, to try and to take away my pride. But I went through the whole system with them. And at the end, I - I wanted the public to know that I was okay, even though I was hurting.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, 'If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.'

The only way to deal with critics is to go over their heads direct to the public.

You know, it's infuriating. It's hard enough to be a young woman not in the public eye, and just have lots of public eyes looking at you ... let alone being famous and having a million people look at you constantly.

Fame is, I think, just a disgusting by-product of what I do.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?