When I first went to New York, I didn't really go out to clubs. It was the height of Culture Club so I didn't really have a social life. It was only after I had been to New York a few times that I started going out.

I enjoy the freedom of living alone and not having anyone interfere with my belongings. I mean, I'm quite a selfish human being. I think being in the public eye and growing up, it's made me quite selfish in some respects. I can be extremely generous with friends, but in relationships I can be quite mean in terms of my time and my affections. I take people for granted, and I'm trying not to do that.

On Madonna: She's a gay man trapped in a woman's body.

As a kid, I would've loved to get a tweet from David Bowie or Joan Rivers or Tom Cruise. It's great that you can communicate with people and it's instant.

I don't get all this Speedo stuff actually, I mean, whatever happened to the feather boa?

I'm not responsible enough to have a dog - or a child.

When Culture Club broke up, I hadn't been going out a lot because we'd been working all the time, so I suddenly had this period of leisure. And it was just around the time that the whole acid house thing kicked off in London.