My very first account was @BlackBarbie, which is what my friends called me growing up. Then I thought, 'You can either call yourself that, or you can find something that will matter to dark-skinned girls.' So I came up with @melaniin.goddess.

I was teased a lot, growing up, because of my skin tone.

I was born in Senegal in 1996. My mom moved to New York when I was two years old, so I was raised by my aunt back home.

Kids used to tease me and call me 'fille des etoiles,' which translates to 'daughter of the stars.'

My family are police officers, detectives. My brother Mitch is FBI. Mitch is like that - a stern enforcer.

In the South, everyone speaks, if you know each other or not. I'm raising my daughter more Southern, like how her father and I were raised.

I captured what I said I was going to capture, the Cruiserweight Championship, and I did it in front of my friends and my family.

My family has always supported me a thousand percent. My sister once sold her jewelry so I could pay for gas money to get up to New York for a show. And that's amazing. But you get too much of that, you start depending on it.