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Raven-Symone Used to Tan 3 to 4 Times a Week to Have Darker Skin While Filming That’s So Raven

Raven-Symone is just being honest. The ’80s child star revealed during the upcoming OWN documentary Light Girls that she once went to extremes to have darker skin while filming her Disney hit That’s So Raven. The new project is a sequel to Oprah Winfrey’s 2013 OWN documentary, Dark Girls.

Related: PHOTOS: Disney stars through the years

“When I had my own show, I used to tan three or four times a week in a tanning bed to get darker. I did,” Symone, 29, says in the clip.

Related: PHOTOS: Stars' coming out stories

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Raven-Symone attends the premiere of “Empire” on January 6, 2015 Mark Davis/Getty Images

“It’s funny, one of the lighting guys came up [to me] — I love him to death. I love him, oh my goodness. He goes, ‘Raven, I need you to stop tanning. You’re getting too dark, and we have to re-light the whole entire show,'” she recalls. “‘I was like, ‘Sorry. I was just trying to be pretty.'” (Back in October, Symone told Winfrey she didn’t want to be labeled as gay or African-American.)

Related: PHOTOS: Oprah's hair evolution

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Raven-Symone, Orlando Brown and Anneliese Van Der Pol on “That’s So Raven” in 2005 ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images

Actors Erica Hubbard and Chris Spencer also opened up about how African-American women can run into trouble while auditioning in Hollywood. “[Some women] will say I didn’t get [a part] because they wanted to go with someone that looked blacker,” Spencer says. “Which is funny because darker women think their lips are too full or their hair is too coarse to get the part.”

Light Girls premieres on Monday, Jan. 19, at 9 p.m. EST on the OWN Network.

Watch the video above now.

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