Jodie Turner Smith’s radiant brown skin made her the perfect woman to play Queen in Lena Waithe’s “Queen & Slim.” But her chocolate complexion wasn’t always valued. In a candid and detailed post on Instagram, the rising actress revealed her struggle with accepting herself.

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Like many dark-skin women, Jodie revealed she hated herself and her dark skin and sought other people’s approval.

“I remember how badly I hated myself and hated the dark skin that made people call me ugly,” he wrote. “How I turned my helplessness at being unable to change my outward appearance inward, by constantly cleaving away any and all parts of myself that I was told made me unacceptable to others. how I changed my voice, changed my hair, became captain of this and president of that, used my intelligence to build a wall around me, spent years in the practice of bending and shaping myself into the most acceptable form of Jodie for the people around me until there was nothing of me left but hate for a person i didn’t recognize and fear that i had become someone it was impossible to come back from…”

Source: ‘Queen & Slim’ Star Jodie Turner Smith Shares Journey To Accept Her Dark Skin