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I was not a Southern California girl. I hated having my photograph taken. I felt shy and embarrassed around famous people.

As a young person, and I know it's hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn't do normally if I was just by myself.

People weren't even aware that I wrote my own songs. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist.

I started shooting pictures because I had all these photographers around me, and life was kind of boring creatively because you play the same songs every night. So I looked for another outlet, and I started shooting.

I started making music for fun, but I had two parents who were very much in the business. I didn't run around trying to get the spotlight. I was very shy. I never sang in front of people 'til I was about 17 years old.

When I came out publicly, some photo editors had a field day searching for pictures of me with a limp wrist or some other stereotypical gay signifier - as though, after decades in the public eye, they'd suddenly come across a trove of shots where I looked like a Cher impersonator.

I was too shy, I think, to sing publicly. It takes a particular kind of person. And when I was young, I was not that person. In the first instance, when a record company said to me, do you want to try and make your record, my first reaction was, no, I'm not worthy - I couldn't possibly, and so on and so forth.

I never took a photograph. Instead, I became a good listener.