The Two Sides of Pink

"Eleven months after we broke up, he asked me to fly to Las Vegas to perform on New Year's Eve at his club. I wanted to see him. And I looked hot. There's something about breaking up with someone — you just look hotter than you ever did before. I will never look as good as I did those six months after we broke up. Never! [Laughs] Anyway, after sound check I told him that he needed to come to my room. I had made him a photo album of all the cards he had ever given me, of all the photos of our entire relationship. I spent months on this album. On the last page, I pasted a photo of me from a really bad movie I made years ago with my neck slit and blood everywhere. Next to it I wrote, 'This is me without you.' On the next page, there was a picture of a baby. And I wrote: 'The rest is unwritten.' The divorce papers that we never signed were behind that page. I was like, 'The rest is up to you.' And I did all of this in his favorite bra and panties."

"That first night in the hospital, she was having a complete meltdown, and Carey was out of it. But this nurse came in and she helped me through the whole thing. We sat up and talked all night with my baby in my arms, and it was like my whole life made sense, for the first time, ever."

"'A girl like me' is someone who doesn't rest on her looks, who has had people tell me from day one, 'You're never going to get magazine covers because you're not pretty enough.' I'm totally comfortable with that. I know my strong points: I work hard, I have talent, I'm funny, and I'm a good person."

"Well, I was always considered butch. Feeling beautiful to me is when I feel good in my leather pants and my husband grabs my ass. Or when I'm sitting on a mat and my daughter runs to me with complete joy. Beautiful has never been my goal. Joy is my goal — to feel healthy and strong and powerful and useful and engaged and intelligent and in love. It’s about joy. And there's such joy now."

For more from the singer, pick up the March issue of REDBOOK (on newsstands February 12).