(Photo by Isaac Brekken/WireImage)

Kelly Rowland is extraordinarily beautiful and talented to boot.   But like many women of color, she had to learn to embrace her beauty, especially her skin tone.

A few weeks ago, during the 2013 Essence Black Women of Hollywood event, Eurweb interviewed Kelly who revealed her past insecurities with being a chocolate woman.

The Grammy Award winning beauty, talked openly about having to learn to embrace her dark skin tone, “You know what, I had great women in my life to help me overcome that. I remember I went through a period where I didn’t embrace my chocolatiness. I don’t know if that’s a word, but I didn’t embrace my chocolate lifestyle. Just being a chocolate, lovely brown skin girl and being proud of that. I remember being out in the sun and I was trying to shield myself from the sun and [Beyonce’s mom Tina Knowles] said, ‘Are you crazy?’ She said ‘You are absolutely gorgeous’ and she just told me how beautiful I was and how rare chocolate is and how gorgeous the skin is, all of this stuff. And I was just like ‘Yeah!’ Like a light went off and so and my mother had me sitting out in the sun a little more, just to be a little more chocolate.”