Salma Hayek: `I was an illegal immigrant in US`
Salma Hayek was once an illegal immigrant in the US.
The Mexican actress - who moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to study acting after a period spent at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans as a child - was illegally in the country for a "small period" of time.
The 44-year-old beauty told the Spanish edition of V Magazine: "I was an illegal immigrant in the United States. It was for a small period of time, but I still did it."
The Hollywood star, who is now a naturalised US citizen and has three-year-old daughter Valentina with husband Francois Henri-Pinault, also reveals her belief the film industry was racist when she first started out because no one wanted a Mexican lead actress.
She said: "I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination in Hollywood when I first started out.
"It was inconceivable to American directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role."
Earlier this year, Salma claimed Hollywood was finally growing to accept Latino stars.
She said: "Hollywood has definitely grown, in embracing the inclusion of Latinos in the world because, for some time, we didn`t exist. We were not part of any stories.
"There are 40 million of us in the US. It was weird. I was very privileged to be part of a small generation of people that broke through that door first, but I didn`t do it by myself. Jennifer Lopez was also part of it. Ricky Martin was a huge part of it. There was a group of people and great timing."
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