Laila Ali
Laila Ali
Laila Amaria Aliis an American former professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. She is the daughter of the late heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali with his third wife, Veronica Porsche Ali, and is the eighth of her father's nine children. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA female super middleweight titles, and the IWBF light heavyweight title...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBoxer
Date of Birth30 December 1977
CityMiami Beach, FL
CountryUnited States of America
I want to encourage women to take control of their health.
Since I was a child, my father was sick. I've always known him to be that way. That's why I'm proud of him - he has a disease he's obviously struggling with, but he's not letting it stop him from doing what he wants to do.
I can't really do that. I can't share a lot of things with him. I feel like the disease is progressing.
I never ran with my dad. He was old-school. He had a whole different idea of training. He ran in steel-toed boots! But, of course, he's proud of me and proud of the boxer that I became.
People like to see me fight. A name can only take you so far. There are only a few fighters out of the thousands of boxers out there that have name recognition. I'm definitely not upset by that.
Sometimes if you don't physically attempt something, you don't realize how sick to your stomach or how hard it is.
I don't get the action... well, I never did get the big action hero parts. I was always locked into making the kids movies, which were a lot of fun.
You have to fight for your health and stay on top of it. Our bodies are meant to be healthy.
I was never offended that people underestimated me because of my appearance or that they thought I was pretty and discouraged me from fighting because they didn't want me to risk hurting my looks.
Authenticity is very important - be true to one's self.
Pregnancy isn't 'I can eat whatever I want,' because you have to remember you're going to be stuck with a lot of that weight afterwards that you need to try to get off.
While I was boxing professionally, I never thought about my looks. The furthest thing from my mind was 'messing up my pretty face' when I was on my way to the ring to meet my opponent. Yet, people I'd meet along the way would always ask me if I was worried about my looks. Then they would go on to say that I was 'too pretty to box.'
I like to play by my own rules.
Focus on being balanced - success is balance.