Queen Latifah Opens Up About Family Tragedy — And the Battle She’s Still Fighting

When she’s not surprising her lifelong fans at music festivals such as Coachella or fighting bad guys on TV, Queen Latifah is lending her voice to causes she believes in.

The legendary rapper, 55, has partnered with the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk since 2021 to change the stigma surrounding obesity and educate people about its connection to cardiovascular diseases.

The journey is a personal one for Latifah, who has opened up about losing weight in the past. Now she wants to pay it forward because the issue is close to her heart.

“Having lost a cousin who was living with morbid obesity and watching what she had to go through and how she fought for her life, why would I not want to be a part of it?” she tells PEOPLE exclusively.

“I watched her fight for her life for years, dealing with cardiovascular issues and blood clots and different kinds of things that were happening to her body, and fighting back and then falling back, and just the challenges because there’s a lot of mental challenges she was facing as well…” Latifah explains.

“She probably had gone through it the most severely, but I was looking at various big members of my family, including myself, and we all need this information. We all need this. It’s relative to each one of us. And so if there’s anyone that could be helped through this, why not?”

One of the biggest things Latifah advocates for is the conversation surrounding people who are obese or struggle with weight loss issues. Her latest spot with Novo Nordisk, posted to her Instagram in March, highlights all the “small” comments often lobbed in jest, but often have a lasting impact. It’s in those seemingly minute moments, Latifah believes, that the negative connotations of obesity are perpetuated.

“Our mission is to make sure that people understand that obesity is a disease, not some kind of character flaw,” she explains to PEOPLE. “It’s an epidemic in the U.S., and it affects two out of five Americans. Two out of five Americans. That’s a lot of people and it disproportionately affects people of color.”

She continues, “It’s a chronic disease, but it’s a manageable disease, and so what we would like for people to do is go to the TruthAboutWeight.com, get more information about it, and really just talk to their physicians.”

TruthAboutWeight shows the connection between obesity and cardiovascular disease and also addresses the bias and stigma against those living with obesity. The site gives people information pertaining to obesity and heart disease — from how to measure your BMI to how hormonal changes can be a factor to cultural aspects that define our relationships with food and also our bodies.

TruthAboutWeight also features confessionals from real people and provides access to a personalized TruthWeight report, which gives talking points and enables you to identify areas of concern when you visit the doctor.

“Everybody who’s obese is not even an overweight person visually. There are some numbers that you have to look at as well. So that’s why it’s so important to get in your doctor’s office and see where you actually stand, because the visuals don’t always line up,” Latifah states.

“TruthAboutWeight can give you a clearer picture, or even give you some questions that you might not have thought of to ask your doctor. It’s a conversation that has to be had, because we also have this love of body as well, but it’s not just body image, it’s about health. It’s actually never really about body image, it’s always about health.”

When it comes to entertainers who have managed to smoothly transition from music to acting, Queen Latifah is one of the best. However, that change also meant adjusting to how people expected her to look. And while she says she did feel the difference in how people looked at her, what was more important was the fact that she also came to realize how the camera altered her image.

“I learned what a camera can make you look like. I learned that a camera is not actually a real eye. So what an actual eye sees is not actually what a camera sees. A camera puts 10, 15 pounds more weight on you than you actually are in real life … So you have to even mentally push past that,” she tells PEOPLE.

“I’m glad I came through Hip-Hop music into acting and not through drama school necessarily, because I don’t know if my mind would have been the same or my power would have been the same. I had already rocked stages being me as me, and dealt with a different kind of image challenges, if you will, before I became a professional actor. So I think I was more prepared to deal with what Hollywood could throw my way.”

And while Latifah has always remained true to herself as she ventured into Hollywood, it doesn’t mean there haven’t been people who have attempted to get her to fit the status quo.

“The thing is you got to know who you are, and fortunately, I think I learned so much in my own family before I even got into the public eye that I wasn’t as easily susceptible to what the mind games that people can play on you in this business …” she tells PEOPLE.

“There are a lot of stylists who are carrying baggage [and want to say] if you are not a size 6 or less, or 8 or less, then you are difficult to dress. No, you just don’t know how to style me,” she declares.

“If you’re a stylist, then you need to go find this. It’s there, you need to source it. If not, you need to make it, and if you can’t really do that, then you shouldn’t have this job because none of us are a size six. So the job is to dress these bodies… This is the way we were when you got the job. It’s actually not us who needs to lose weight, it’s you who need to figure out how to dress us.”