Singer and social media star Madison Beer, 19, has millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube, but admits that negative comments sometimes “take a toll.”

Singer and actress Madison Beer talents were discovered on social media (by Justin Bieber, no less), and she has a whopping 12.1 million followers … on Instagram alone. But the 19-year-old admits that life isn’t always what it appears to be on social media, and even fame isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Beer sat down with TODAY Style’s “Why I Love My” series to share her reality behind the posts and what she loves about her freckles.

Something that I’ve learned to love about myself is my freckles. I used to absolutely hate them; I even looked into ways I could get them removed.

I think I didn’t love my freckles to start with because no one else that I knew had them. I was the only girl that I ever saw that had them. I saw boys that had them. But all the girls just had this beautiful, like, porcelain skin with no freckles, no birthmarks, nothing like that. And I was the one kid who had freckles on my face. I felt like being different wasn’t good at a young age, but I’ve learned differently.

I have such a vivid memory of being at this country-themed party or whatever and all the girls drew freckles on their faces. And I remember kind of looking around and being like, “Are they making fun of me?” And I got super insecure about it.

At the end of the night they were all able to wipe their freckles off. And I wasn’t. And I just, I don’t know, I felt ugly.

I guess I do have role models that have helped me love my freckles. My dad being one of them. His freckles looked super sweet and cute. And I think that every time I go to a photo shoot, they’ll never let me put foundation on. They always are just like, “We want to see your freckles. We love your freckles.” And I think that that’s definitely helped boost my confidence. Now I love them.

To my younger self I would say not to be so hard on yourself. I think that you are your biggest critic. And you are much hard on yourself than you need to be and that other people are on you. So, take it easy, because you’re a good kid and don’t deserve to beat yourself up.

I think I learned that lesson with time. I think that I was always sucked into my Instagram comments or my YouTube comments. I would let those things get to me and then I would look at myself in the mirror and be like, “They’re always right. They’re right about you. You’re horrible,” all this stuff. It just took a toll on me. And I kind of woke up one day and was like, “No. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not playing this, like, I’m my worst enemy game.” I got really tired of it.