Joined by her Empire co-star and good friend Jussie Smollett, Gabourey Sidibe appeared on a pretty entertaining installment of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live.

During a post-show segment, which only appeared online, the mother of a 12-year-old girl, who is being bullied because of her size, called in asking Sidibe for advice.

While Sidibe has always appeared confident and self-assured, she’s admitted to her own struggles with confidence, self-esteem, and body image, in the past.

“Junior high school is a battlefield,” she said. “Junior high school sucked for me. High school sucked for me. I didn’t get good with myself until I was like, 25 years old.”

Sidibe also added that finding her passion helped her to overcome the negativity and bullying.

“I knew every song on the radio, so I sang a lot,” she explained. “And it was really weird cause like older classes – like the senior girls – would come find me in school and have me sing their favorite song, which is weird. My mom’s a singer – so it’s not surprising that I have a voice. And that’s kind of what I found that I liked about myself.”

“Get her in a class or something,” Sidibe advised. “Have her find something that she loves about herself. As long as she builds herself and she finds her own self-love – no matter what anybody says about her – it’ll hit her and fall off of her.”

“Tell her to hold strong. Tell her to hold on, but it’ll be worth it, honestly,” she added.

Sidibe also mentioned that her upcoming memoir, set to hit shelves in May of next year, will touch on a lot of the issues that she dealt with growing up.