LEWIS TOO TOUGH TO DWELL ON ATTACK

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Leona Lewis credits her upbringing in a tough area of London with giving her the strength to bounce back from an attack by a man at a book-signing last month (Oct09).

Fans were stunned after the Bleeding Love hitmaker was punched in the face at a shop in the British capital.

But she's refusing to dwell on the incident, insisting she witnessed much worse tragedies happen while growing up in East London's crime-ridden Hackney borough.

She says, "I'm from Hackney, so I'm hard. I'm not going to let something like that bother me. When you grow up where I did you lea rn to move on. There was always some kind of craziness going on in my neighbourhood.

"The boys were always fighting each other and there was loads of street crime. I know how to look after myself. The part of London where I grew up has the highest crime rates in the country."

And Lewis insists she has no plans to hire an entourage of security guards to protect her, adding, "I am trying to see it as something isolated, something that doesn't happen often, and something that won't happen again. As for extra security, I've tried to keep it pretty much the same. I've always tried to keep as few people around me as possible because I don't feel like I need it. But now, after this, I also know that doing this you have to protect yourself a little bit. I won't be doing a Beyonce and hiring a seven-foot bodyguard - although it seems to work for her!"

Peter Kowalczyk, 29, was arrested at the scene and charged with assault. He is currently awaiting trial.