A Quote by Adwoa Aboah

The most amazing thing for me is when I open up a magazine and I see someone I could be friends with and looks, maybe, slightly like me. And I think that's the same with young girls. Because there needs to be diversity.
The good thing about most of the girls that I've met on the road is that, regardless of whether they're cute or not, man - they can bring it onstage, which is inspiring not just for young girls and young people in general but for myself because then it makes me want to step it up.
I think each person, if you're a CEO, the most important thing is to have - to me, is to pick people around you that aren't like you, that complement you. Because you want to build a puzzle; you don't want to stack Chiclets up and have everyone be the same. And so I believe in diversity with a capital D.
I grew up in a big Mexican family and... we always were so comfortable in our own skin. So society, the stuff that I think we see a lot now for young girls, didn't really reach me because I had this huge Mexican bubble around me saying, 'You're beautiful. You're amazing. You're strong. And be you.'
I won't allow magazines in the house. When I was younger, I wanted to have my hair cut like so-and-so in the class above me at school, not somebody in a magazine. You see young girls trying to dress like so-and-so because they've seen lots of pictures of them.
I see myself on the cover of a magazine and I don't think that it looks like me at all. My first-ever photo shoot was for the cover of a lads' magazine.
I'm Italian and Spanish and Jewish. I'm 100 different things meshed into one. I think that shows girls that uniqueness is beautiful. They can look at me on a magazine cover and see me in a movie and say that they have someone they can relate to.
One thing I'd do was put a great writer's book beside the typewriter and... type out a beautiful and moving paragraph... and see those sentences rising up... and... think, 'Someday maybe I can write like that....' It was like a dream of possibilities for my own self. And maybe I began to know that there was no other way for the sentence... to... arouse the same feeling. The someone writing whose words were rising from the typewriter became like a mentor for me.... You shouldn't do it more than a few times because you must get on with your own work.
I do have a family, and I do have friends, and so-called friends, and acquaintances, and many other people I see only around Christmas time. Maybe they could vouch for me. Maybe they could testify to my existence and save a part of me that thinks I'm no better than a bag of potato chips.
My fan interactions are really, really special. They're one of the highlights of this job for me, because I go out and do these conventions all across the world and meet all of these young girls - girls that look like me, and girls that look nothing like me, that are excited and empowered to see a woman of color on television. I'm really grateful for the fans that I have.
Maybe the biggest award show of the largest entertainment importer in the world needs an economic incentive to embrace diversity. Indeed, maybe we should boycott the show and pressure advertisers to do the same. Or maybe the Academy should learn the lesson of history and change because it's the right thing to do.
I feel like it's important to talk about my health, which is fine, and my size because there are young girls who see someone like me and can validate their own existence.
I really do hope 'The Hate U Give' provides mirrors for readers who don't often get them in books. I've had so many young black girls tell me just how thrilled they are to see someone who looks like them on the cover. I hope that they see themselves in the pages as well.
I was hoping to be a healthy example, because we can't all look like all of these actresses and the models you see on the covers of magazine. And they aren't doing it healthfully anyway, I promise you. And I could not believe the backlash. I could not believe that people twisted and turned that story - and accused me of having body image issues or an eating disorder. And then someone explained to me that most people on the planet probably don't know what Weight Watchers is, that it's really just about good eating habits.
Maybe it's good a thing that people see me this way [in the documentary film]. They expect to see me with the high heels, the glamour looks, but now they will see me running through an airport with flat shoes! Also, they'll discover that stylists with "names" are in general nicer, sweeter, have a heart, have great relationships with family and friends, and that's important. It shows that people in fashion aren't just freaks.
Years ago, when I first started wearing hair extensions, I would get mail from young girls, or young girls would come up to me and they would say, 'Tyra you have the most beautiful hair, like I could never grow hair like that!' And I would say 'Child, this is a weave!'
I think that is a really good message, especially for young girls to hear. The fact that someone like me from the western suburbs of Sydney could become an actress in movies who didn't look like a regular actress, and that I can make it I think gives a lot of hope to other girls who are really creative and don't necessarily follow the standard of what some people consider beauty to be.
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