I grew up in New Orleans. I had just moved into my dorm at the University of New Orleans, and I was doing laundry, and my mom called me, like, 'We've got to evacuate. There's a hurricane's coming.'

Boys do cry, but I don't think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family - not even my mother - who I could look to and be like, 'I know you've never said anything homophobic.' So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you've heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music.

With digital space, the content has become accessible for the audience. So, they feel more connected to you as you are more accessible to them. The kind of adulation actors get today is very different from the kind of adulation you had for a star which came from aspiration rather than relatability.

My theme for philanthropy is the same approach I used with technology: to find a need and fill it.

I've got mates who have got married through meeting on Internet dating sites, so it really can work out - even if sometimes it does go disastrously wrong.