{blackbabes} Kerry Washington looks like herself on new Marie Claire

Kerry Washington is back to looking like herself on the April cover of Marie Claire, following controversy over her allegedly lightened skin tone on the March issue of InStyle magazine.

The famously private "Scandal" star — who shows off smoky eye makeup, barely-there lip color and tousled waves for the issue — tells Marie Claire how much she values her own space.

"Earlier in my career, I was much more super-sharey," said Washington, 38. "There were moments when I wanted to process things that were happening to me more privately, and I didn't have the space to do it, because once you let people in, they're in and you don't get to say, 'Oh, I want this for myself.'"

The Bronx native has managed to keep much of her personal life under wraps. She secretly married former NFL pro Nnamdi Asomugha in June 2013, then quietly gave birth to the couple's first child, a girl named Isabelle, in April 2014.

Of her daughter, Washington said she just wants the little girl "to know that she's heard." "When I think about any of the missteps in my life that I've made, all of which I'm grateful for, it's because I just so wanted to be truly seen and heard for who I am and was afraid I wasn't or wouldn't be. I see you, I hear you, I'm with you as you are."

"Girls" creator Lena Dunham, who is guest-starring on an upcoming episode of "Scandal," interviewed Washington for the issue, which hits newsstands March 24.

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