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Brandy daughter

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It isn’t easy being a teenager in today’s world, but one can assume it would be even more difficult being the teenage child of a celebrity. While she hasn’t exposed her child in the way others stars do, the life of Brandy’s daughter Sy’rai Smith has been a topic of conversation since she was born. And as she’s grown up, what she looks like and does has been spoken about, sometimes unfavorably, now that she has a presence on social media. But Sy’rai, 16, isn’t letting any of that affect her. In fact, she’s encouraging other young women her age to love on themselves something serious no matter what other people say or do.

In an Instagram Live video that was shared by her famous mother, Sy’rai eloquently spoke about her weight and why any changes she chooses to make to herself as far as shedding pounds will be for herself, not for anyone else.

“I’m bigger than most kids,” she said. “I can’t do anything about my past and I can’t wish that I was somebody else. Being who you are should be more important than worrying about what you look like on the outside. Because there can be a beautiful person in a beautiful body, but in the inside you can be so ugly. And like me, I’m not the skinniest. But if you really want to change, change because you want to change. Don’t change because other people are saying, ‘You’re a big girl, you’re fat, you’re this, you’re that.’ Don’t change because of what they say, change because you want to change. Don’t ever let anybody else tell you who you are. That’s the one thing that made me want to lose weight. It’s because I wanted to lose weight for myself. And don’t say that someone is going to treat you better because you’re skinnier. That’s not true. As long as you know who you are, nobody is going to care about your weight if you walk in that school with confidence.”

All of this wisdom, and at only 16.

The reason for all of this sagacity may likely come from her relationship with her famous mom and the friendship they have. Brandy has talked openly about the mother-daughter bond they have in the past.

“A lot of mothers feel like they’re the mom first, with that authority. But for me, I’m a friend first. I believe that just being there for my daughter as a friend more than ‘I’m in charge…’ causes her to be more open with me as a person,” she said to PEOPLE.

“I know I’ll probably get flack for being a friend first, but it really works,” she added. “[Sy’rai]’s really honest with me. I’m just teaching her how to trust herself. I tell her all the time that my life is not your life — you have your own life. At the end of the day we’re going to be friends. When she grows up, it’ll be about that friendship that we’ll have. She’ll come to me for any problems that she has.”

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