[My mother] is much more musical, and by the time I started writing songs - by the time I was about 17 - she started to believe in me, musically.

It's quite simple: I managed it by doing away with Wham!'s duo image. Obviously, the way I looked changed and that helped a little, but I still have a very pop image. It's a very video-friendly image. I find it a lot more real. It's a lot closer to who I am than the whole Wham! thing.

The thing that's weird is that we thought it was funny. We expected people to get the joke - that we [with Andrew Ridgeley] were two guys really making asses of ourselves.

I was supposed to be a real Thatcherite. Just by dint of being a first-generation immigrant and having not had money, and then suddenly having it - and getting on planes and going to Ibiza and sitting around in thongs. But actually nothing I was writing or doing was even vaguely Thatcherite.

By the time I was in my early teens, we were able to move into a much more middle-class area. I had a comfortable adolescence.

I have definitely reached the same level as Madonna in terms of sales. I'm really pleased about that.

When someone is always going to be there for you. I meet people like that all the time, but I have this unfortunate attraction to people I think I have to fight to become friends with.