She is an Academy Award winning actress and has been announced this year’s world’s highest paid actress by Forbes.

But, things were different for Jennifer Lawrence, the 25-year-old Hunger Games star, when she first moved to New York to pursue an acting career.

Speaking with American radio station NPR, the outspoken actress has revealed she once lived in a ‘rat-infested’ apartment in New York when she was just 14-year-old.

‘I had a horrible apartment [in New York]; it was completely rat-infested. My brother, who was 18, went with me at first and my parents left us and we were both like, ‘we’re going to die,’’ She told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross.

‘With hardly any money she described her apartment as a “closet with a hot plate” that had no hot water or a kitchen.’

‘I didn’t really have any money, so if a rat had eaten my loaf of bread, before when I first got there I [would have been] like, ‘Ew!’ and throw the whole loaf of bread away, but eventually I was like, ‘God, I’m not going to be able to afford bread,’ she added.

‘Lawrence, who was announced this year’s world’s highest paid actress by Forbes explained how when she was living on the breadline, she was eventually forced to accept living alongside rodents.’

‘I got to the point where I was literally sharing food with a rat,’ she said, ‘night was horrible, that’s when [the rats] all come out. I wouldn’t go to the bathroom.’