Halima Aden Quotes

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.

When I first came out, I was wearing full-on traditional Nigerian wear. I got told by a lot of people that I should just tone it down. I only stopped when I realized there's only so many prints you can wear.

I am a black woman, and I'm proud of that, but as a showrunner, I want to think about what makes me unique beyond my race.

I'm covered in tattoos head to toe, I have this striking style, I'm smaller than most competitors, and people are like, 'Yeah. That's my guy.' Why? Because they can see part of themselves in me.

I think it's amazing that I can go out there and be myself, and the fact that I'm carrying Puerto Rico on my back a little bit is such an honor.

I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

Look at Scottish guys wearing kilts - you could look at them and laugh, but the way they carry themselves, how can you? You can wear some of the weirdest things and be cool. If you believe in it, that's what makes it cool.

I'm the little half-black, half-Jewish girl who was odd and awkward. I try to be myself.

I know one of the reasons I first started making Youtube videos was because no one looks like me.

When I was in school, I got there on the first day and everyone had long, blonde, straight hair, and I had short, dark, curly hair. I immediately felt I didn't fit in and started growing my hair. But I've learned that I'm only happy when I am truly me and feel comfortable and confident in myself.

I can be an incredibly fabulous person, and I don't have to be in the highest heels, the tallest wig, the skimpiest outfit.

I want the world to get a feel of me, showing them the way I am and the way I get down.

I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.

I don't want to play everyone's best friend. I don't want to play the role of a girl struggling in the ghetto. It's not that that story isn't important, but I saw patterns, and was like, 'I don't relate to these people.'

I grew up watching cinema in my country that wasn't telling stories about us, and we had to find a way to connect, and our references, our role models had nothing to do with us. And I'm so glad that it's changing.

Everyone has something unique to bring to this world. And if you understand that, if you cherish that, if you embrace who you are and then capture that with your clothes... then that is when fashion can make a powerful statement about who you are and what you are about.

I can actually dress up or bring my femininity in and bring my own flair and my own stout - and still be great at what I do. We're created different to be unique!

I'm proud to carry that torch and be like, 'I'm gay! I'm black! Hang your dreams on me. Hang your hopes on me. I'll carry them to the best of my ability.'

Wearing hijab made you know that I was Muslim.

It feels good to be a role model for little girls who don't often see natural hair on the red carpet.

When I was a youth, to be called 'African' was a diss. At school, the African kids used to lie and say they were Jamaican. So when I first came in the game, and I'm saying lyrics like, 'I make Nigerians proud of their tribal scars/ My bars make you push up your chest like bras,' that was a big deal for me.

I do identify as a Muslim and I do identify as a Bangladeshi girl, I identify as British, as well, and a woman and I'm a woman of colour, and why am I ashamed of that? And I used to not want to talk about it. But that is me.

It's really empowering when you see yourself represented in entertainment and, especially, onstage when you're talking about how this country came to be.

But at the end of the day, I'm a girl. I'm from Santa Monica. I'm going to look how I want to look and play how I want to play, and if people don't like it, then they don't like it.

I thought for a very long time that I had to conform or maybe change the way I look, or maybe the hijab was dimming my beauty. I took a moment, and then I realized, you know what, there's a lot of girls who do wear this, and this is their reality. It just made me even more prouder to wear it.