Lady Gaga credits the women and gay men in her life for "giving her strength".

The 'Million Reasons' hitmaker has praised her friends and team for making sure she's always feeling "powerful and strong".

She said: "The girls that take care of me. I have these wonderful powerful women in my life. They wake me up every day and make sure I am powerful, feeling good and strong. And also the gay men in my life. I would be lying if I said there weren't some straight men on my team, but to me, it's the women and the gay men around me who give me strength."

And the 31-year-old singer is keen to "connect" with her fans and the wider public on a "deeper level".

She added to V magazine: "I want to connect with people on a deeper level. And I wanna be able to see all those other things I'm interested in, but slowly and differently. 'Joanne' is about living every day as if it's my last.

"For me, 'Joanne', in the simplest terms, it's the classic stories of our lives that help us return to who we really are, no matter how lost we get. You can always go back to a loss, or the pain of a pending loss, or a challenging struggle in your family life, or your childhood. And when you go back to that place, it somehow brings you back to where you were in the beginning. And for me, that's what writing this album was all about."