AceShowbiz - Mary J. Blige has gotten candid about her insecurities. In a new interview with Elle, the "Family Affair" singer admitted that she didn't feel beautiful until she called it quits with her husband of 12 years, Kendu Isaacs.

"I didn't feel beautiful-like for real for real, not just 'Hey, I'm pretty' but actually believing it-until about 2016," the 51-year-old claimed. "If you've been beat down mentally by someone, you're never pretty enough. You're never smart enough. Nothing's ever good enough."

Mary confessed that she was feeling "so low" when she was filming "Mudbound" and when she was married. She added, "I had to pay myself the highest compliments, even if I didn't believe it, just so I could build myself up."

"I would do it in the morning, because that's the time when your hair is not done and you don't have on makeup. You're just kind of dealing with yourself for real," the nine-time Grammy Award winner. She then revealed her daily morning affirmations, including telling herself, "Good morning, Gorgeous. I love you. I got you. I need you."

Mary, who signed to Andre Harrell's Uptown Records in 1989, divulged that many in the industry often told her look was too rough. "When I got in the business, I was already blonde. I was already red. I was already doing those colors. I wasn't searching for an image. I was my own image," she said.

"Ghetto fabulous is just, when you come from the hood, you at your flyest. What can you afford? What can you do with it? You want stones on your nails. You want mad colors on your nails. You want colorful furs," she continued. "You want Timberland boots to rock with your furs. You want a hockey jersey? It's whatever you feel you can do with whatever you can afford."

"Growing up around drug dealers and the women that I hung out with, they wore furs-long sables and silver foxes and red lipstick. They were just fly. Men wore them, but when you saw a woman show up in one, you knew who she was," she concluded.