I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.
— Natalie Cole
Losing people is dark, but some things you just have to accept.
I think that I am a walking testimony to you can have scars. You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.
The worst I think that I ever was, when 'Unforgettable' had come out, and not long after that I was on - I was on my way to my second divorce. And that was a crushing, crushing blow.
We used to have to arrange things around the dialysis. I would have to plan where to play so I could be back in time, and couldn't go too far.
If you don't have dialysis, absolutely, you will die. Dialysis is actually keeping me alive.
I feel enough distance from the person I used to be. I'm not ashamed about my life anymore, because I've learnt from it.
I couldn't breathe. I - I went into - literally, my kidneys stopped functioning. They stopped, you know, processing the fluid that was starting to build up in my body.
People said when I started, 'Why don't you just copy your father's style?' I had to be myself, singing my songs in my own way.
I think people just want to be popular. So they're going to write lyrics that are going to get your attention. You know, sometimes, they're a little graphic, and I don't think that's so necessary.
My father led by example. He wasn't much of a talker - he walked life.
I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.
The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream - even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948.
Aretha Franklin does not like me.
I imagine there are a lot of people who will never be able to accept me because they feel I've let them down, but I am a different person, and most people have welcomed me back in that spirit.
God surrounded me with people of faith, people of strong faith, people of power, spiritual power, and I saw little miracles happen in their lives. By it happening in their lives, I started believing it could happen to me.
When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be disappointed, don't you hope there is something out of there that is not of human element?
When I sang my father's songs in concert, that was all people wanted to hear. I was always asking myself, 'Can I measure up?'
The medication I had to take was a form of chemotherapy. You feel like death every day. No appetite. No energy. But the treatment worked. It cured my liver 80 per cent but compromised my kidneys.
I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.
I think that talented people really do have insecurities, and that is one of the things that kind of motivates them, because that's one thing they know they're good at. And when they're up on that stage, you can do no wrong. The audience is yours; they're there to see you.
I already had high blood pressure. I have hypertension. And I think the chemo was just too much for my kidneys. And they went into failure. And that was September 12th of 2008. And the doctor rushed me right to the hospital.
I can laugh at myself because I've had to. Everything would have been much worse if I'd been the singing son of Nat 'King' Cole.
There are some great human beings out there. That's all I can say.
I have been to hell and back. I have seen the edge. I have seen the dark side of life.
My first trip to Mexico was with my dad because of his Spanish records. That was back in 1958. I found a picture of me when I was eight dressed as a little senorita.
I've always loved Spanish. I love my father's Spanish records.
It's important to wallow and grieve when you have a health issue. I don't think you really get the best stuff out of life until you've had the worst stuff.
When I was old enough to walk home alone from school, I loved seeing our house from a distance. It sat on the corner of South Muirfield Road and West 4th Street and had this proud, majestic look. But I rarely went through the front door. The back was more dramatic.
I was pretty young, but because of that first record, 'Cole Espanol,' we took our first trip - well, my first trip - to Mexico.
I think that I sound a lot better than Diana Ross.
I managed to survive the worst things any entertainer could possibly go through.
We had some wonderful people raising us, but they still weren't our parents. As you get older, it gets distorted and convoluted, complicated, and, of course, you start looking for attention, affection, affinity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
I don't think that my parents even imagined that I would be exposed to drugs. In those days, for some reason, it was not talked about, just like sex was not talked about.
I'm an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances.
Life is such a gift, I just say thank you all day.
I'm a born-again Christian. I was raised Episcopalian - I've always been of a Christian faith, but I became much more active in it when I married my first husband, Marvin. I changed from Episcopalian to Baptist.
I started saying, 'I don't want to be crazy anymore.' I need to make some changes. And the first thing I started doing was just got all the men out of my life, because that was a big problem for me. That was a crutch, if you will. You know, trying to define yourself through other people or men, in particular.
I was pretty bad. When I first was diagnosed with kidney failure, my function - the function of my kidney was less than 8 percent.
I continually acted up to get attention. My father gave me that, and once he left, I felt that I didn't have any.
I have been on dialysis in Istanbul, Milan, Indonesia, Manila, London. It's - it's amazing.
Nothing had been attempted like that, to lift Dad's voice, literally, off of that track and put it on a brand-new one, and then line it up, match it up, get the phrasing right. I remember listening - everyone listening at the end, and we were just enthralled. It was really wonderful.
I think we need to be sexy and kind of mysterious and still pretty and beautiful. I like to hear that when a man sings. I don't really want to hear about taking my clothes off.
You shouldn't have regrets. I'd say instead that I've learned a lot of lessons. Yes, I could have handled some things better. But they've also made me who I am today.
I had to make peace with my past because I can't change it.
As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.
I've always been interested in the office. I was a secretary a long time ago, and I've always been into paperwork. My first secretarial job was 1965 or 1966.
Las Vegas has the type of audience - and they haven't changed since my father's days - they're still boring and bored. And there's only that handful of artists that they really enjoy and know how to respond to.
God was going to be to me the father that I never had, the father that I didn't have enough of, enough time with.
There's inevitably something missing when you grow up in this kind of an environment when your parents travel a lot. When your father is famous, you are looked at and expected of. There are standards you need to meet.
