In her new book "Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman" (Morrow), Queen Latifah (nee Dana Owens) encourages readers to help her kick her longtime smoking habit. "If you see me on the streets with a cigarette, step to me," she writes. Apparently the cure hasn't worked yet; the 28-year-old singer-actress-author punctuates her interview with EW Online by lighting up a Newport in her Manhattan hotel room. Isn't she afraid that fans will take it upon themselves to chastise her now that the memoir has hit stores? "I figure if the whole world gets on my a--, I'll have to quit," she says.

She's certainly won bigger battles before. Part autobiography, part straight-up advice tome, "Ladies First" is an account of Owens' inner-city childhood and journey to fame. And unlike most gushy celeb bios, her literary debut doesn't gloss over the rough spots: She details, among other things, her stint as a drug dealer, her pot-induced numbness after her brother's death, and a one-night stand where she exchanged sex for money. You can bet Kathie Lee wouldn't go there.

"Basically, there's some things in the book that I felt I shouldn't discuss with people," she says, propping her elbows on her black-leather-clad knees. "But at the end of the day it was like, What are we trying to accomplish here? Do we want to feed somebody a fairy-tale story about how you were poor and then became rich? Because that's bulls--- to me."

Latifah says she took a shot at writing because "TV can be such....TV. You don't get good information from a lot of it, and it's calming to read a book." She lists Dr. Seuss among her childhood faves. Not quite what you'd expect from a rapper who's bellowed lyrics like, "Get off my d---/And tell your bitch to come here," but then again Latifah isn't one to back off. Except maybe when it comes to Mom. "She just don't play with that smoking in the house," Latifah sighs, "so I gotta quit."