''I did not get this surgery to be beautiful"- Gabourey Sidibe Opens Up About Weight-Loss Surgery

Last year, Empire star Gabourey Sidibe underwent weight-loss surgery, and she’s opening up about the experience and her battle with depression, anxiety and bulimia for the first time .

In her new memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, excerpted exclusively in the latest issue of PEOPLE,she says

 It has taken me years to realize that what I was born with is all beautiful,” she writes in her book. “I did not get this surgery to be beautiful. I did it so I can walk around comfortably in heels. I want to do a cartwheel. I want not to be in pain every time I walk up a flight of stairs.”The surgery wasn’t the easy way out,” she says. “I wasn’t cheating by getting it done. I wouldn’t have been able to lose as much as I’ve lost without it.

I know I’m beautiful in my current face and my current body. What I don’t know about is the next body,” she writes her in This Is Just My Face. “I admit it, I hope to God I don’t get skinny. If I could lose enough to just be a little chubby, I’ll be over the moon! Will I still be beautiful then? S—. Probably. My beauty doesn’t come from a mirror. It never will.” 

“There’s nothing ugly about me. Anyone trying to convince me that I am — and it’s usually me  is wasting her time,” she says. “I was in a war with my body for a long time. If I’d started treating it better sooner, I wouldn’t have spent so many years hating myself. But I love my body now.

2015 vs 2016

 I have a goal right now, and I’m almost there,” she says. “And then once I’ve got it, I’ll set another. But my starting weight and my goal weight, they’re personal. If too many people are involved, I’ll shut down.”

The beauty added that she is even ready to date.

'I am ready to receive a gentleman caller,' she said.