We all remember growing up with mean girls, right?

I wasn't prepared for the environment I encountered trying to break into television news. In the world of music, where I spent my formative years, we were judged solely on our talent, and gender wasn't a factor.

I've been for women's empowerment my entire life.

I might even pursue a career in politics. If I do, I will have had great practice dealing with the avalanche of daily criticism from working at Fox News and being a former Miss America. I'm ready for anything!

I feel like I went through the Great Depression. All these companies are being successful around you, you're on that track, and then the market collapses, and you're out of a job. You're trying to save your investors' investment, and it doesn't work, and you sell the company for nothing. It was brutal.

I was part of a writers' collective with 21 writers and filmmakers called the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. We had our own office space in this old converted dog and cat hospital, and we had a basketball hoop outside. I'd bring my dog to work every day and write.

I did not come to Mumbai to act. I came here to look for a job as our business had shut down, and it was a difficult time for us.

Political and economic insecurity inevitably translates into insecurity in people's everyday lives, from lack of access to welfare to the increasing lack of security in the workplace.