Janelle Monae hates seeing women "s**t-shame" each other.
The 32-year-old singer-turned-actress hasn’t shied away from having her voice heard during the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements in Hollywood – but Janelle has admitted she’s other people use her conservative image to abuse other women, insisting it’s something she’s "not cool with".
Janelle said: "I see how people try to pit women against each other.
"There are people who have used my image to s**t-shame other women: ‘Janelle, we really appreciate that you don’t show your body’.
"That’s something I’m not cool with. I have worn a tuxedo, but I have never covered up for respectability politics or to shame other women.
"I’m guilty feeling like I can’t just be. Like either it’s this or it’s that, it’s black or it’s white.
"But there’s so much grey. And I think I’m kind of discovering the grey and realising it’s OK not to have all the answers, or to supply them."
Meanwhile, Janelle – who is getting ready to release her third studio album ‘Dirty Computer’ in two months’ time – also revealed that she is most afraid of being rejected.
The singer admitted she struggles to cope with rejection because she has a tendency to overthink things.
Asked what she’s most afraid of, the American star told the Guardian newspaper: "I’m about to cry. I think – rejection.
"This may all be in my head, because I have a tendency to overthink s**t – I know that about myself.
"But I think: rejection. This started with me, with my feelings. But people want me to be an image that’s in their mind; what held me back was that I represent something to so many people and people put all this pressure on me to be just this one thing."