Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o battled discrimination because of her skin color while growing up in Mexico.

The Oscar winner was born in the country and spent many of her formative years there, but she struggled to fit in.

"People would stop and take pictures of us just because we were black," Lupita tells Britain's Elle magazine. "And it was a time during that tricky adolescent phase when you're coming into yourself and you're trying to pave your own way but you're insecure about where you lie. It devastated me."

The 12 Years a Slave star, who was named People magazine's Most Beautiful last year (14), blames the discrimination on the lack of black actors and models in the entertainment industry.

"If you turn on the television and you are not represented on that television, you become invisible to yourself," she adds. "And there was very little of myself that I saw on TV, or in the movies that I was watching, or in magazines that were lying around the salons or around the house. And so these are subconscious things.

"Yes, Western beauty standards are things that affect the entire world. And then what happens? You're a society that doesn't value darker skin."