Lady Gaga is "emotionally thin".

The 'Judas' hitmaker - who is renowned for her eccentric dress sense - believes she holds her feelings close to her under a layer of skin but is not "vulnerable" as that implies she does nothing but cry.

Asked what she has learned about herself recently, she said: "I learned that to be a great artist, you must be emotionally very thin. Your tears and anger and your happiness must be just under the surface of your first layer of skin.

"I like to say 'emotionally thin' because it's much more dramatic. Vulnerable to me implies only tears."

However, the 25-year-old singer admits it is a challenge to fight against public perception of her and reveals she is "an act".

She added to PopDust.com: "The challenge is that what others view as artifice-my wigs, my makeup, my clothes, my love for show business and theatre-to me, these are the paint in my palette. These things are not artifice. These things are my reality. But they create a boundary between me and the public that I have to fight through.

"People wonder, 'Is she for real? Is it all an act?' But my question is, 'Since when did the act become a bad thing?' Show business has always been about the act. Hasn't it?"