I think hype is a good thing. You need it and it'll teach you valuable things and you'll grow stronger, which is what I've done.

I hadn't even released my first proper single when I started to feel the strain of attention. But I don't believe that it was the attention that was giving me panic attacks. I think it was everything in my life colliding at the same time. It really did get to a serious point where I couldn't even walk down the street without getting the pain.

When I sing along with Britney Spears I will sing in an American accent. But eventually I found my own voice. My songs are so brutally honest, it would be alien to sing in any accent other than my own. Don't get me wrong - I can imitate singers. I can do bar mitzvahs and weddings.

I could always sing, from a really young age, but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.

I never remember having a plan. All I could think about was how I was going to afford to get into college or where I was going to stay because I hated being at home. I didn't really have time to think about anything in the future. I didn't think about a career or anything. I went to uni, got a couple of jobs, so I sort of funded it myself.

I guess I'm just quite observant and I pay attention to a lot of things. Human behavior really fascinates me.

I got approached by SoBe a few months ago about being an ambassador and I learned about the previous ones including Naomi Campbell, so I was instantly interested! Then I tried and really liked it. It's different and has interesting flavours... we don't have anything like it in the U.K.