My relationship with my mom is so amazing. We never got to have that stage that people go through, like when you're 13 and you think you're too cool for your parents. When you're embarrassed by them and stuff. We never went through that because I was constantly working and she constantly had to be there.

My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around.

Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.

We didn't have a TV in the living room and all my friends thought we were kind of weird. When they'd come over, my mom wanted to talk to them about current events.

My mom is this liberal, feminist, Mormon powerhouse. I just love her to death.