Lupita Nyong'o revealed she struggled with her complexion as a child during her acceptance speech for an award at Essence magazine's seventh annual Women in Hollywood luncheon on Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
Nyong'o, who won the award for best breakout performance, said she prayed for lighter skin.
"I got teased and taunted about my skin," the "12 Years a Slave" star said, according to the AP. "My one prayer to God was that I would wake up lighter skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of the mirror because I wanted to see my face first," Nyong'o said.
Nyong'o, whose parents are Kenyan but was born in Mexico, has taken Hollywood by storm, receiving an Oscar nomination, a fashion campaign with Miu Miu and appearing on magazine covers like Vanity Fair. But it took Nyong'o a while to come to terms with her own beauty.
Nyong'o would promise God that if she was made lighter, she would never lose her sweater again and stop eating sugar cubes.
"Every day I would feel the disappointment of being just as dark as the day before," Nyong'o told the audience at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the AP reported.
Nyong'o began to appreciate her complexion when she saw supermodel Alec Wek, from Sudan, being featured in magazines and fashion shows.
"I couldn't believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn't help but bloom inside of me," Nyong'o said, the AP reported.
The actress said she wants to help other young women appreciate their inner and outer beauty.
"I hope that my presence on your screen and my face in magazines may lead you, young girls, on a beautiful journey," Nyong'o said, the AP reported. "That you will feel the validation of your external beauty, but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside."
