Before you knew her from The Real Housewives of Atlanta or watched her crack jokes on Glee, NeNe Leakes was a struggling single mother who worked as a stripper named Silk.

"I remember going home and having something like $1,000 and thinking, 'I made $1,000 in one night. Baby we are doing this tomorrow night,'" she recalls in a new interview with E!'s Giuliana Rancic.

At the time, NeNe had recently left an abusive relationship and now had a small child to care for and no money. KEEP READING: Working The Pole! NeNe Leakes Opens Up About Stripper Past: 'It Became An Addiction'

More from Radar Online: