Aubrey O' Day admits she 'did not handle things with grace' in the past

Life in the public eye isn’t always as easy as it looks. Aubrey O’ Dayopened up exclusively to Us Weekly about navigating fame for more than a decade — and admitted she did not always “handle things with grace.”

“There are just so many heartbreaks in life … I believe that every heartbreak is just another step closer to aligning and connecting with your insides and making sure your insides and your outsides are operating in the same line,” the 34-year-old singer told Us. “And I think that it’s our job in life to find a way to be able to handle them with grace. … When I was younger I did not handle things with grace like I do now.”

O’Day rose to fame as part of the music group Danity Kane, which was featured on MTV’s Making The Band 3 in 2005. A year later, the group’s self-titled debut album was released. After their second album came out in 2008, O’Day left the band.

“I wake up every day and I have a little bit of pain on my heart for not just recent stories, I have stories all the way back from when I was 17 and got fired from a group for a bunch of reasons that were not truthfully told as well,” O’Day told Us. “I mean I’m 34 now and I’ve been dealing with it being relayed to public sphere incorrectly since I was 17.”

More recently, O’Day made headlines in March for a past affair with Donald Trump Jr. during his marriage to Vanessa Trump. The duo met on the set of the Celebrity Apprentice in 2011. She told Us that it’s “very hard” to be misrepresented in the public eye, but she doesn’t “have any brilliant answers” for how to cope.

“I always consider that and all the people on the other side have always had more money and power than me and you would be drastically surprised at how much those things dictate the portrayal of an event,” she explained. “I think I’ve always handled myself with way more grace than I’m credited for … But I’ve gotten so far past what I’m credited for.”

O’Day and her ex-boyfriend Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio are currently starring on season 11 of Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. The reality personality, who previously admitted she “truly felt tortured” in the relationship with the Jersey Shore star, told Us that she’s still seeking the perfect way to handle public situations.

“I think there is a grace that I’m still trying to find. It’s kind of like I went into this show very aware that I was being treated wrong and that a lot of really toxic things were happening that I didn’t understand,” she explained. “I was angry and I wanted to expose them as much as I wanted to get help and the expose part is the part that I would like to find more grace with because exposing anything in life really does no purpose and serves no purpose other than your ego.”

Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars airs on WE tv Fridays at 9 p.m. ET.