Jennifer Lawrence: “I was literally sharing food with rats”

She might be Hollywood's darling worth millions but things weren't always that way for Jennifer Lawrence.

When the actress first started out she was living in New York in an apartment 'riddled with rats'. Lawrence left home at 14 with on a mission to make it as an actor. She explained: "I was raised by rats and that'll toughen you up. And I got to the point where I was literally just sharing food with rats. I didn't really have any money." The 25-year-old admitted that while she was disgusted by the creatures at first, she was so desperate to break into the industry that she learned to live with them. "So if a rat had eaten my loaf of bread before, when I first got there, I'd be like, 'Ew', and throw the whole loaf of bread away. But eventually, I started just cutting around the hole that the rat had ate." And the 'Joy' star confessed that it wasn't until her parents saw that she was willing to live in squalor in order to accomplish her dream that they really began to believe in her. She added: "So that's when my parents were like, yeah, I think she really, really wants to do this."