Queen Latifah: ‘Beauty is not just a white girl’

Rapper-actress says her curvaceous body is normal in today’s ‘big country’

Richard Drew / AP

“(In Hollywood) we’ve definitely gotten better with body type,” Queen Latifah says. “It used to be just me! Now with Jennifer Hudson’s success and America Ferrera, I got some successors to take the reins on this whole bodylicious thing.”

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updated 2:35 p.m. ET Oct. 25, 2007

NEW YORK - Queen Latifah says the definition of beauty is changing.

“Beauty is not just a white girl. It’s so many different flavors and shades,” the 37-year-old rapper-actress tells People magazine in its latest issue. “It’s good for regular girls because the meter (for beauty) has been a slim white girl.”

“(In Hollywood) we’ve definitely gotten better with body type,” she says. “It used to be just me! Now with Jennifer Hudson’s success and America Ferrera, I got some successors to take the reins on this whole bodylicious thing.”

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Latifah describes herself as being voluptuous — “definitely curvaceous.”

“I think I’m normal compared to the statistics,” she says. “This is a big country nowadays.”

The star of “Chicago” and other films says she had elective breast-reduction surgery in 2003 to alleviate years of back and shoulder pain.

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“I didn’t want to get it. But I had lost 25 pounds and my breasts didn’t go anywhere! I was still carrying that load,” she tells the magazine.

However, “I didn’t quite want them to be this small,” she laughs.

Before surgery, Latifah says she was “an E or an F cup. I was pretty big. Now Im like a DD. I wanted to be a triple. They took one D too many! So that was hard to deal with. ... I missed my old look.”

Latifah says she isn’t interested in more surgery.

“There are people who love (plastic surgery) and want to cut and chop anything. I’m like, ‘Y’all are crazy!’ ”