I wish I were a man. It would make my life easier in this sexist society.

I intend to be a candidate for those who want to vote against everyone.

When I was 18 and was studying in university, Vladimir Putin became president of Russia.

I have a certain tradition here at the GQ awards. Every year I pick the best-looking man and bestow upon him my kiss.

I am used to people underestimating me.

I don't trust a system where Putin makes all decisions.

Of course for some Putin is a tyrant and dictator. Others consider him Russia's savior. But I'm in a difficult position. Putin helped my father - and practically saved his life.

You can laugh at me, but I understand show business.

I know how to be loud.

I don't want people to vote personally for me. I want them to vote against the system.

The people are really afraid of what's going on in Russia; they are suffering with fear, sitting at home, doors locked, because they are afraid of their government.

I don't want to take power. I want to break the wall of this autocratic regime.

Many people would vote for me, I'm quite sure.

Stalin is a shameful stain on our country's history.

If people don't like me, I insist they can vote for someone else. The only stupid thing we can do is to stay at home. I don't know a single election in the world that was changed by staying at home.

I follow the Bulletproof diet - it is based on grass-fed steak, vegetables, no carbs and a lot of butter.

I like that I have a boyish figure, because I love wearing men's suits.

I was a child badminton wizard.

I always thought I had a face like the moon, because I had really chubby cheeks when I was a kid, right up until my mid-20s. My face changed in my later 20s and again in my mid-30s.

My father passing really, in many ways, was a gift: It made me look at my own happiness and sense of self and realize that I wasn't happy. I had checked all these boxes and achieved all this stuff that I thought made you happy. And I was miserable.

Music for me has always been a vent and has always been a great outlet.

Venice Beach is incredibly quiet at night: no streetlights, no traffic, hummingbirds in the garden, palm trees everywhere.

I was very into tribal techno and used to go and really lose myself in great dance music.

I guess if you make quality music then it has a longevity and it will find its place.

I really enjoy tech, but I'm not voracious - I'll find stuff because I want to use it, not because I'm interested in what's out there. It's a sort of necessity relationship.

I would never pigeon hole myself stylistically because I just don't know what I am going to want to do next.

When I was seventeen, I left Scotland to go to Kent, a well-to-do boarding school in Connecticut, where there was a contingent of really naughty kids.

I think it was Dad who gave me my nickname 'Katy Custard,' recognising my deep, positive and lasting relationship with it.

I'm a huge fan of The Chemical Brothers and the Ninja Tune label and a lot of the stuff that they put out like DJ Shadow but I think, out of all of them, Leftism really just excited my musical brain in terms of the way that they mixed real instruments with dance tracks.

In Scotland, Dad grew courgettes which were the size of my leg. I'd step into the garden and it was like 'The Day of the Triffids.'

I didn't find fame particularly difficult, partly because I'm proud to be able to say I'm the most unrecognisable face in pop.

I joined a drama group when I was eight. It was the first time I'd made the connection with an audience.

Touring can get really hard if you're not hitting some fashionable zeitgeist.

I get so frustrated with all these so-called singer-songwriters coming out and they don't write!

I'm a serial monogamist - I tend to dive in.

For me, success is being happy. I used to think it was lots of houses, lots of record sales, lots of stories to tell. But some massive life changes, getting a divorce and my dad dying, led to a huge period of reflection.

Use Creme de la Mer balm when your skin gets dry on a plane. You can put it on your cheeks to give your face a bit of a glow after you land.

I'm not really that comfortable, to be honest, singing about my darkest moments.

Don't let your parents telling you that you shouldn't do something stop you from doing it.

Touring is such a major sacrifice, especially as you get older, to be away from friends and family and home and any sort of routine or home comforts.

I've always had a tendency to keep an emergency exit in a song. I can't remember ever writing a song that is completely and thoroughly depressing; there's always been a way out somehow. A sense of hope in song, regardless of the subject matter.

If your parents only listen to jazz or folk, you're like one of those trees you see in botanic gardens that have wire frames on them - you grow into that shape, you follow it or you have to break away from it. But I didn't have influences to embrace or kick against - I also had no idea what anything was.

The only thing I know about being Asian is that my hair is black and my eyelashes are straight and I have strange eyebrows.

I can do the vocal acrobatics but I really try not to. I've always been drawn to singers who sing it like it is, pure, straight down the line: Ella Fitzgerald, Patti Smith, Carole King. Simplicity is really important to me.

You know, we were outdoorsy types, my folks, and one of the first tapes I got, a friend gave me a cassette tape of Ella Fitzgerald singing with the Count Basie orchestra. And it was the first time, really, that someone's voice had really spoken to me, and it was just so pure.

I really liked writing rhyming poems and plays.

British music lovers in general are dreadfully concerned about being cool, but I'm quite happy to grab uncool by the horns at any opportunity.

My dad's a physicist and had a key to the St Andrew's observatory, and we used to pop down to see Halley's Comet and Saturn and meteor showers.

KIN' is basically a kind of rite of passage, scars-and-all celebration of going through difficult things in your life and being better for it.

I grew up thinking, 'You go to university, you get your degree, you get a job, you get married and then you have a family.' But when I got to the point in my life where I had all those things, and was looking to start a family, I was miserable. I realised I didn't want kids.