Supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley says she occasionally has to remind herself of how lucky she is to be in a successful career, after spending 12 years trying to make a name for herself in the fashion industry.
"The first eight years of my career were a grind. Sometimes I almost forget. I moan about having to get on a 12-hour flight and I catch myself and go, 'Shut the f**k up, Rosie. Who thought you would be sat in first class on British Airways sipping a cup of tea, everyone asking if there's anything else they can bring you?'
"It's a very privileged bubble I rotate in and it's important for me to remember that," she told Esquire magazine, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
The blonde beauty, who grew up on a rural farm in Devon, south west England, moved to London in her teens as she was attracted to the "glamorous" and "dangerous" cosmopolitan life.
"I was the country kid who wanted to go to the city. As soon as I hit my teens, and I started to get inspired by fashion and culture and travel, I wanted the cosmopolitan life and the opportunities you could only get if you lived in London. I wanted to be in a city that was glamorous, that was sexy, that was dangerous," she said.
However, the 27-year-old model, who now lives here with her boyfriend, British actor Jason Statham, insists she will always be a country girl at heart and feels "inherently British", despite moving stateside aged 18.
She said: "I've lived out of the country since I was 18 but I do feel inherently British. Even though I live in LA, a big bulk of my work is in England and so I feel really cemented here."