Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.

I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter - I just didn't identify as a songwriter at all.

ABBA was a direct influence on me.

I want to make the IKEA of clothes for fat girls and boys. Cheap, affordable, basic - but ethically made. Basics, you know? Like Spanx - I'm still confused as to why retailers haven't ripped them off yet and done it well. It's because they don't understand the basics behind it. I love Spanx. I'm wearing 'em right now!

In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: "That must be nice."

I feel dance and pop music genres are extremely female and extremely gay. When it comes to art and pop culture, queers are f - king weirdos. We don't have gender rules that tell us what we can and can't be. We just make it up as we go along. We have full creative license to be whatever we want to be.

It's funny how something so normal and mundane that you see every day-your body-can be controversial. The shock value is intense. It's like carrying an art piece around with you all the time.