This star became a ’10 year old mom’ to 3 little kids when her mother was ‘gone’

She grew up believing she was “stupid.”

That was the message her family hammered home so relentlessly that she came to accept it as fact.

Today, no one calls her that – instead, she has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and one of the most powerful people in entertainment.

Involved in a horrific car accident

Some childhoods are tough — and then there are truly harrowing ones. The star we’re focusing on today once thought she wouldn’t make it past 21. At times, the story of her early life is almost unimaginable in its tragedy.

Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, California, her childhood was filled with turmoil and heartbreak. Her father left the family when she was only three.

Her mother, Leola, was an African-American small business owner from a Jehovah’s Witness family. Unfortunately, the mother’s life — and everything that happened to her — would have an enormous impact on our future celebrity.

”When I was a kid and I was moving around, all my stuff had to be in trash bags, and moving like that is not good for the self-esteem because it [makes] you feel like garbage that can easily be transported to here or there,” the star told Variety.

”You start thinking of yourself as such, as garbage. That was the worst feeling in the world personally.”

By the time our star was nine, her mother had been in a serious car accident that left her with brain damage. Struggling to regain basic skills, her mother sometimes directed her frustration and anger toward her eldest child.

The mother became quick-tempered, abusive and violent.