I started my music career at 18 and for a long while I let other people handle my affairs.
— Sophie Ellis-Bextor
I'd never really thought about it before, but now you ask I can see that how my parents handled money definitely affected my relationship with it.
I was an only child, but then my parents resettled with different partners, and I am now one of six.
Someone had my number and they started text-stalking me. I've never replied to them. It was tempting to write back, but I resisted.
My rule for the corporate stuff is the same as with my music - I do whatever means I can sleep at night and whatever means I can be dignified.
Philately is normally a boys' hobby but for some reason it was in vogue at my junior school. Between the ages of eight and ten I collected avidly. I'd pore over my Stanley Gibbons book, obsessively checking my collection's value. I always hoped I'd stumble across a really valuable one, a Penny Black or an Inverted Jenny, but it wasn't to be.
Everybody remembers Robbie Williams said I had a face like a satellite dish.
Getting up to dance to your own stuff looks pretty pretentious. And leaving the dancefloor when it comes on is just awkward.
I don't think that old-fashioned idea of record companies exists any more.
On my wedding day. I didn't want a natural, blushing-bride look - I had a full-on hairdo and red lips. I thought it would be disingenuous to do the whole virginal look, so even though I had the white dress, I had pink net underneath.
When I first started out, I got criticism for the way I looked. I think, now, it's a good thing because, why would you want to look like everyone else?
I don't know why people think I'm polished - I often leave the house with buttons missing and ladders in my tights.
I'm a sucker for good black skirts and pretty little shirts and kooky tops. I have to admit that shopping satisfies my craving for immediate gratification.
I used to be hung up on my figure, but it's a waste of time. I don't believe in diets. Have four pints one night, be healthy the next.
I think I'm fairly good with money, but I've developed some strange tics - in shops I don't like to go to the counter unless I've got at least two things to buy. If I'm walking around with just one thing in my hand I'll put it back and wait a few weeks because that doesn't seem like a proper purchase.
The fact that my mother was on television every week while I was young was occasionally awkward, and often frustrating.
My parents separated when I was four. It wasn't the smoothest of divorces, but then as my mother always says, you can't have a passionate marriage without a passionate divorce.
I'm someone who has always been quite clear about what I like. In the studio, I'm not a control freak but I know what I want.
I'm a little bit allergic to the whole brand thing to be honest but maybe it's just happening around me and I'm not really aware of it.
I wrote the worst novel ever.
I don't think anyone doubts my motives, really. I do what I do and it's not very complicated. Of course, you might hate the music that I make, but I don't think people feel threatened by me just getting on with what I'm up to.
I've been DJing a little bit, so you get used to the fact that music sounds brilliant when it's loud.
A lot of what inspired many musicians is celebrating differences, and people relate to that - more people feel like the unpopular, freaky one than the one in the in-crowd.
Not all my shoes are designer. In terms of clothes, everything is on the same level for me. If I like it, it doesn't matter if it cost £200 or £2. I'm attracted to things rather than labels.
You have to apply yourself because you'll never get a better opportunity than the one you have right now. Having said that, people know by now if they like me or not. I don't need to prove anything.
There's so many singers, you watch them and a lot of it is waving around. You don't get this feeling that they're really thinking about what they're saying.
For every person that says I'm the new Audrey Hepburn, someone else says that I look like an alien.
Like my mum, I sometimes buy things I shouldn't and fill my house with rubbish.
Two premature babies was not a genetic thing; we were just unlucky.
It's funny how intimate it feels to get a text.
I must confess I knew very little about the trance scene, I'm more house and commercial dance but it was really interesting and different.
Now when I say Sophie Ellis-Bextor I feel that's not really me because that's become this entity from doing the gigs and the shows and the make-up contracts and whatever else.
I learned to stand up for myself at school where I was never too popular.
But I quite like that the public has a very short attention span. If I haven't been on telly for a little bit, I can sense it. People don't take as much notice of you, it's really quite palpable.
There are a lot of people out there who lie about their age and I think it does us all a disservice. It can't all be over when you hit 30. That would be rubbish.
Also, I think women really come into their own in their 30s.
I'm really interested in fashion but at the same time I find it quite competitive. Second-hand stuff leaves you more open to whatever your own personal style is rather than feeling dictated to by shops.
Having a successful first album is one thing, but a successful third is another.
I think there's quite a lot of cowardice in music. I don't mind if it goes wrong, I just want to go for it.
Some people can get away with being very sexy to men and not looking like a complete cow, but I didn't think I was in a position where people knew me well enough.
