I've lived on my own since I was 13 and not been to school and brought a son up who's now 18 and run theatre companies and bought a butcher's shop, learnt guitar by myself, taught myself to sing and that sort of stuff.

I think there is a total equality for me between painting a literary figure or Kate Moss or my Mum or a dog or a bird. To me, they are all absolutely equal.

I had been painting Kate Moss for a long time, both before the time of her crisis and during it. I felt very strongly for her - she's a hard-working mum and it seemed as if suddenly the world turned against her. Holy water cannot help you now is painted in very warm pretty colours.

Perhaps the people I choose to paint are often objects of derision - celebrity is a bit of a put-down term, isn't it? But to me they are my world.

I do have a very, very big problem with someone who saw me coming and exploited me as a mascot.

Books are my one luxury. I have a lot of large coffee-table-size art books, in the shelves above my bed, about people like Warhol, Basquiat and Velasquez.

I've lived on my own since I was 13 and not been to school and brought a son up who's now 18 and run theatre companies and bought a butcher's shop, learnt guitar by myself, taught myself to sing and that sort of stuff.