Gabourey Sidibe Latest News: The Oscar-nominated actress has never been anxious to take on her haters. The actress reveals the source of her confidence in a speech at Gloria Awards and Gala, hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women, in New York City. The "Precious" star first declared that she detests questions about how she's so confident, ABC News reported.
"One of the first things people usually ask me is, 'Gabourey, how are you so confident?' I hate that. I always wonder if that's the first thing they ask Rihanna when they meet her. 'RiRi! How are you so confident?' Nope. No. No. But me? They ask me with that same incredulous disbelief every single time. 'You seem so confident! How is that?'" she told the audience during the 80th birthday celebration for Ms. Foundation for Women founder Gloria Steinem.
According to ABC News, Sidibe then digressed into a story of how she baked cookies for her fifth-grade holiday party and not a single classmate accepted one.
"I just forgot for a moment that my entire class hated me, I thought I was better than the kids in my class, and I let them know it," the actress recollected. She said they hated her not just because she was "fat" and "had darker skin and weird hair," but because she was "a snob.
Speaking about her fifth-grade class, she said, "If I hadn't been told I was garbage, I wouldn't have learned how to show people I'm talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn't have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn't tried to break me down, I wouldn't know that I'm unbreakable."
She then thanked her awful fifth-grade class, "because if they hadn't made me cry, I wouldn't be able to cry on cue now."
"It's not easy. It's hard to get dressed up for award shows and red carpets when I know I will be made fun of because of my weight. There's always a big chance if I wear purple, I will be compared to Barney. If I wear white, a frozen turkey. And if I wear red, that pitcher of Kool-Aid that says, 'Oh, yeah!' Twitter will blow up with nasty comments about how the recent earthquake was caused by me running to a hot dog cart or something. And 'Diet or Die?' [She displays her middle finger] This is what I deal with every time I put on a dress. This is what I deal with every time someone takes a picture of me. Sometimes when I'm being interviewed by a fashion reporter, I can see it in her eyes, 'How is she getting away with this? Why is she so confident? How does she deal with that body? Oh my God, I'm going to catch fat!'"
Finally, she exposed the source of her confidence, her Aunt Dorothy Pitman Hughes, whom she described as "a feminist, an activist, and a lifelong friend of Gloria Steinem."
Every day on the way to and from school, she would pass a photograph of her aunt and Steinem together, the actress recalled.
"Side by side they stood, one with long beautiful hair and one with the most beautiful, round, Afro hair I had ever seen, both with their fists held high in the air," Sidibe narrated.
"Powerful. Confident. And every day as I would leave the house... I would give that photo a fist right back. And I'd march off into battle," she added.
