I haven't always been confident. I actually suffered with low self-esteem growing up. Eventually, I got to a point where I was just like, 'OK, this is taking too much energy.' After that, I started accepting myself for who I was, and I was like, whoever is not going to accept it, they weren't really meant to be in my life in that way.

Growing up, Tina Turner was definitely one of my influences, and, um, I take things from different artists, and I put them in my music, and I put them in my persona and my - they help me form into the artist that I am, so - for people to actually hear that come through the music is exciting.

I'm proud of my curves, my daughter, as well as the harsh past that helped shape me into the strong woman I am today.

What made 'American Idol' different from 'The Voice' and all these other singing competitions... 'American Idol' just gave regular old normal people like me and like Trent a chance.

I like the opportunity to travel the world and work in close company with other people.

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

My objective was to have as varied a selection of roles as possible. It probably did hurt my career.

My father was career military. He was a veteran, he was a doctor of political science, he taught at West Point and Air Command Staff and lectured at the War College.