A common misperception of me is that I am a victim. I am not a victim. I am just honest about how things affect me.

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.

A common misperception of me is that I am a victim. I am not a victim. I am just honest about how things affect me.

Even in the most horrendous situations there is always something to smile about.

My working hours are not that conventional. I often get up about two in the morning and do a painting, and then I'll have a bath, and then I often feel very hungry around 4am, so I'll go into Soho and have a meal somewhere like Balans. That's what I love about living here - there's always life around me.

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.