The 20-year-old, who wrote her first song aged 12, said that being rejected by her classmates after singing the national anthem at a professional basketball game was one of the most painful things she can remember.
'That memory is one of those painful ones you'll never fully get over,' she told the Daily Mail.
'At that point I'd been shunned from the group for whatever reason and I was still trying desperately to be included. That evening, I called them up and they each said no and mum said, 'You know what? You want to go to the mall, let's go together'.
'And we ran into this entire group of girls who had told me they were busy that night. So we got in the car and we drove to the mall that's an hour-and-a-half away but is a better mall.'
She added, 'And we showed them in our own tiny way. We had a great time.'