Fashion-happy pop singer 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. "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," she said when asked what she has learned about herself recently.

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

"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?"