Meghan Trainor: I believed I had the talent for stardom, but not the right look
As a teenager Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor believed she had the talent to be a superstar, but not the right look, she tells correspondent Tracy Smith in an interview for CBS' "Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood," to be broadcast March 6.
Trainor, 22, now has the kind of success many artists dream of, including the hit "All About That Bass," an anthem for self-acceptance. Yet not so long ago, she hid her body as a teen growing up on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
"I -- every day -- wore sweatshirts and sweatpants to cover up my body, 'cause I was so insecure," Trainor tells Smith. "And it would be summer. And I would go on vacation and I'd be in Trinidad and Tobago, 90-degree weather, and I'd be wearing sweatshirts that said 'Nantucket.'"
Trainor said she would resist family members asking her to change into more weather-appropriate clothes.
"I didn't want to show my arms," she said. "I didn't want to show anything, and I was just so insecure and uncomfortable, and I thought, 'All right, if I'm fully covered -- I'm good.
"And that's not what I should have been feeling."
She can't explain exactly why she felt like that: "I see pictures of my face and I'm just -- I'm like sad, and I'm in a sweatshirt and I'm in my room producing 'cause I just turned off the idea of, like, 'You'll be the face.'"
Back then, Trainor said, she told herself she would worry about dieting and getting her body together when she was 25 or so. But thanks to the phenomenal success of "All About That Bass" and a number of other hits (including "Lips are Movin' "), Trainor learned to accept herself, and as a result has become an important role model for young listeners struggling with similar body image issues.
"I get messages all the time: 'I hated myself, I didn't wanna go to school. I was so uncomfortable, and now I love myself. And I was in a really dark place until your song came out,'" Trainor said. "And I was like, 'Whoa, man, we gotta do more of these songs!'"
Smith also visits with Trainor in the recording studio where she is working on her second album, as well as at her old school, Cape Cod's Nauset Regional High School.
The Emmy Award-winning "Sunday Morning," hosted by Charles Osgood, is broadcast on CBS on Sundays beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET. Executive producer is Rand Morrison.
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