Gabourey Sidibe’s mother used to tell her that she never wanted a daughter as girls have a “really hard life”.
The 34-year-old actress made a name for herself in the heart-wrenching 2009 film Precious, playing the titular teenager who is abused by her parents.
She recently decided to take her talent behind the camera and turned director for short film The Tale of Four, which was inspired by Nina Simone’s song Four Women and focuses on issues such as race-based and domestic violence and dangerous encounters with the police.
Sadly for Gabourey there were plenty of relatable topics, as she opened up to Refinery29, “My mom always told me that she never wanted to have a daughter. I know this sounds harsh and f**ked up, but what it set up for me as a child was that being a black woman was not going to be easy. That’s what my mom told me. She said she never wanted to have a daughter because girls have a really hard life. Those were the first lessons I got about being a black woman. Today, as an adult, I would really like to erase that narrative from my life.”
Gabourey has certainly worked hard to break the stigma surrounding her race and she insists it’s extremely important for people like her to helm projects as despite being called ‘minorities’, she notes, “There’s no f**king way there are less of us than there are of them.”
The star has appeared in various projects since making her professional acting debut eight years ago, including crime comedy Seven Psychopaths and TV series American Horror Story, and she’s feeling more comfortable in her own skin than ever before.
“Confidence is not something you can pay to get one time and you’re good,” she noted. “Confidence is like make-up. You have to put it on every day for it to be useful. We all put it on. People ask me about my confidence all the time and it’s mine.”
