I've always been the porky boy in my head.
I was brought up when media still kept totally away from violence when it came to children. I don't think it would have made me scared of violence, but I find it repulsive.
Deep down, my ego always thought that I would outlast a lot of people that I was competing against.
I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn't, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music.
I had to walk away from America, and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career, because I knew otherwise my demons would get the better of me.
The fact I had my father as an adversary was such a powerful tool to work with. I subconsciously fought him to the degree that I drove me to be one of the most successful musician in the world.
With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.
Of course, I want to sell this record - there's no point making it otherwise.
It's important to me that I should be free to express myself.
I've never done anything so political before. I've spent years shouting my mouth off about serious issues over dinner tables but never really had the confidence to express my views in a song.
I'm not anti-American. I've lived with Kenny, a Texan, for six years.
I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.
I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.
I think for most of us, our biggest frailties are sexual.
I spent years growing up being told what my sexuality was.
I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 - in certain parts of the world anyway.
It's absolutely essential that we have the same safeguards that straight couples do. But I want more than a 50 percent chance of success. I don't want to emulate that.
If I can just live further from the spotlight I think that'll be better for all really.
I'm the luckiest writer on earth.
I don't really think that there is anyone in the modern pop business who I feel I want to spar with.
