VIDEO: Rachel Dolezal Breaks Silence On Disguising Herself As Black

Everyone was talking about it, memes swarmed the internet and #AskRachel became a trend around the world on Twitter. Now Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP President who disguised herself as Black, is finally breaking her silence. 

Rachel told TODAY's Matt Lauer in an exclusive live interview that she identifies as black — something she started doing at the age of five.

"I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair," 

she told Lauer. But she insisted she never deceived anyone as numerous critics have suggested.

"I do take exception to that because it's a little more complex than me identifying as black or answering a question of, are you black or white?" 

she said.

Dolezal defended her identification as an African American against comparisons to putting on blackface, as some in her family have suggested, as well as many on social media.

"I have a huge issue with blackface. This is not some freak 'Birth of a Nation' mockery blackface performance," she said. "This is on a very real, connected level. How I've had to go there with the experience, not just a visible representation, but with the experience."

And even after the internet ripped her apart, Dolezal stands by herself saying she would make the same choices again.

"As much as this discussion has somewhat been at my expense recently, and in a very sort of viciously inhumane way come out of the woodwork, the discussion is really about what it is to be human," 

she said. 

"I hope that that can drive at the core of definitions of race, ethnicity, culture, self determination, personal agency and, ultimately, empowerment."

Dolezal's interview came less than a day after she resigned Monday from her position as president of the NAACP's Spokane, Washington, chapter amid the controversy surrounding her and claims she made about her race and upbringing.

Watch Rachel Dolezal break her silence in the interview below: