I was changing my outfits, my looks, my wig, sometimes several times a day. That's when I know my soul is restless.

I often think people don't know what to think of me, and in fact this is precisely the objective of many of my creations. Even back in the days with Lady Starlight, my original partner, we aimed to bemuse. This feeling of bemusement - it's neither good nor bad. It just is. Whether critics realize it or not, they've been in a very long argument since my public birth.

We wanted to make something that sounded perfect because of the quality of the emotion...the honesty.

I know people said I wasn't selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you're talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

No matter how much you rehearse on that stage, once you add 30,000 screaming people with flashing cameras into the equation, it's pretty intense.

I was very depressed when I was 19... I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me.

I work very hard, but when God opens that door for you - when life opens that door for you, I should say - I think it's important to be giving, to return the love back.