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“I have my dad’s ashes, and every Father’s Day I mix them with my eyeshadow and wear them on my face,” drawls Jeffree Star.

“He was amazing. Yeah, I’m sick in the head. I just think it’s funny. I was six years old when he died of alcoholism, and when you’re young, death doesn’t mean that much. I remember being like, ‘Hmmmmm, OK. Can I have some more ice cream now?”

This 23-year-old singer never holds back, whatever the conversation topic. One of the success stories of MySpace, Jeffree’s known as much for his androgynous image, bitchy blog updates and emo-fringed boyfriends as for his electro-pop, and counts Paris Hilton, Kelly Osbourne and Kat Von D among his friends.

He’s talking to Bizarre from his living room in Los Angeles. Last night’s conquest is upstairs in bed and Jeffree’s two neon-dyed Pomeranians, Diva (orange) and Ice Cream (pink), are playing tug-of-war with a dog toy at his feet.

This version of domesticity is different from Jeffree’s upbringing in Orange County. He lived in a seven-bedroomed house that was “the biggest in the street”, but he was an only child and was often looked after by his grandparents, because his mum also had a drink problem.

“She’s nine years sober now, but she had a lot of problems when I was little,” Jeffree says. “My biggest memory of her is being arrested when she got her first DUI (driving under the influence). We went down to a convenience store and we got pulled over. I was in the back seat and I watched her get arrested. My grandpa had to come and walk me home. I was kind of like, ‘Oh wow, here we go again’.”

Jeffree’s mum was a model, so he learned about make-up at a young age. But the biggest influence on his childhood was the Spice Girls. Every wall of his room was covered in their pictures, and he wanted to be “bigger than life”, like them.

“I like them all, and even though Posh is so famous now, back then I liked her because she was so bitchy and had a really good style. I met her when she was in LA with her hot husband. I want to have a threesome with them, so I’ve got my work cut out...”

By the time he hit his teens, Jeffree had taken the Spice Girls’ philosophy and given it a dark twist: goth. Black trench coats, big platforms, black lipstick and blue hair were his school uniform. “I looked really ugly now I look back on it, but at least I can laugh about it,” he says. “I invented Twilight. I looked like Edward Cullen before he was created. I was sleeping with the werewolves before that was ever written!”

Sleeping with people has been important to Jeffree for some time. He discovered he was gay at age 10, and didn’t waste any time in exploring his sexuality.

“I always knew that I liked guys,” he remembers. “When all the girls were talking about how cute boys were, I was always talking about fucking them. As a teenager I was really popular – all the teachers wanted to sleep with me. I was never good at history, so I sucked the teacher’s dick. No one found out, but I finally passed my Christopher Columbus map test...”

Jeffree swapped exams for lipstick by getting a job at a MAC cosmetics store when he left school. He loved the products and was the top seller, but he hated dealing with the “stupid” public. At the same time, he began working as a make-up artist for famous people, but got fed up with their egos. His solution? Working in a mortuary. “Doing make-up for celebrities was a nightmare, because they’re always talking and there’s so much drama – I thought it’d be cool to do make-up on dead people because they can’t talk back to you,” he teases.

At the weekends, Jeffree did make-up for Hustler porn shoots. “It’s pretty boring to watch people fuck for 14 hours, and that’s why I quit and started doing music. I’d rather make porn – I’m releasing my sex tape soon,” he jokes. “You’ll see a lot of face-fucking, and a mixture of guys and girls; I don’t want to get seasick.”

When he wasn’t on porn sets, Jeffree was having sexual fantasies of his own while working on music videos for the likes of AFI. “I’d never really heard them before until I met Davey (Havok, lead singer), and we became really close friends. I bought his music and I thought it was really great,” Jeffree explains. “They’re also great in bed... I haven’t slept with all four members, just one big one. I’m not allowed to say who, but people can Google it.”

Through these experiences and nights out in Hollywood clubs, Jeffree’s phonebook swelled with contacts. Though he’s coy about who he knows – “I can’t give my friends’ names away... they’d be mad!” – he’s been photographed with Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship, Jared Leto from 30 Seconds To Mars and all of 3OH!3. In 2006, Peaches drummer Samantha Maloney (ex-Mötley Crüe and Eagles Of Death Metal) gave him his first song, ‘We Want Cunt’.

“I’ve always had a passion for music, and having a bunch of friends in the industry was great, because they gave me stuff they’d worked on,” Jeffree explains. “I wrote music to it and put it on MySpace, and it became a big deal and everyone liked it for some reason.” Despite its success, however, he’s since fallen out with Samantha. “I don’t want to talk about it... drama. In LA, it doesn’t take much to stop being friends with someone.”

Jeffree's EP Plastic Surgery Slumber Party followed, while his first show was at home in Orange County, supporting Hollywood rapper and fellow MySpace celebrity Mickey Avalon. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I just remember having a lot of fun,” he recalls. “It was just me and an iPod, and I sang and pulled people onstage. They loved it, I loved it, and it felt natural to perform so I pursued it.”

He’s since played “loads of festivals”, including a show in Alaska. “It’s where Sarah Palin (the Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election) lives, and I love her,” says Jeffree. “She wants to kill gay people, and I want her to try to kill me! I haven’t asked her yet; I’m waiting for her book tour...”

Second EP Cupcakes Taste Like Violence, released in 2008, is packed full of lyrics about fucking and fashion, while also reflecting Jeffree’s predisposition to fighting. He admits to Tasing people, hitting them with stilettos and using Mace.

Why is he so violent? “Why aren’t people more violent?” he responds. “I mean, I guess it’s different when you’ve had to be defensive your whole life; maybe some people don’t understand that. If someone’s going to throw a drink on me or be really rude and say something, then I’m going to strangle them in a club or beat them with my Christian Louboutin heel. In sixth grade (the equivalent of UK year seven), my next-door neighbour tried to strangle me in the playground, so I bit his arm really hard until it was bleeding everywhere. Maybe that’s why I like the character Hannibal Lecter. He’s intelligent.”

Jeffree’s debut full-length album, Beauty Killer, out last September, follows similar themes to his previous releases, and examines LA culture and obsessions with lovers. “I think this album represents me now. I put in a lot of dark thoughts I had about love. I think the industry is so saturated with fake shit, so I wanted to write my take on it,” he says.

Jeffree’s not a fan of fake shit. As well as falling out with Samantha Maloney, he broke off his friendship with Metro Station’s Trace Cyrus during the recording of Cupcakes Taste Like Violence, and counts Frank Carter from Gallows as an enemy after the singer slagged off his music on last year’s Warped Tour.

But one celebrity Jeffree remains mates with is Kat Von D. The two met, hit it off instantly, and Kat tattooed him with the face of murdered beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey. “I’d wanted it for a long time, and I had Kat do it the first time we met,” he says. “LA’s full of so many fake people, and we both saw that we’re genuine. Four years later, we’re best friends.”

When Kat broke the Guinness World Record for the most tattoos given by a single person in 24 hours (which has since been beaten by her ex-husband Oliver Peck and then by Arizona tattooist Hollis Cantrell), Jeffree was number six in line to be inked. “That was probably the twelfth tattoo I got from her,” he says. “On a normal day we just like taking pictures, and going shopping is always fun. Nikki Sixx (her ex-boyfriend, and Mötley Crüe bassist) loves me!”

The JonBenét Ramsey tattoo shares skin space with around 30 other portraits, including Princess Diana, Sharon Tate, Jeffree’s mum, his grandpa, his grandma, and himself in sixth grade.

“I like how real portraits look,” he says. “People’s faces intrigue me – that’s probably why I started doing make-up. It’s really weird when someone comes on me, because they’re coming on someone else’s face.”

As much as Jeffree loves sex, he says he’d pick his music career if he was forced to choose between the two. He has over a million MySpace friends (or “bitches”), and he’ll keep performing and designing clothes (he has a line at US, mall-friendly alt.store Hot Topic).

There are also rumours of a reality TV show, though he’s not allowed to talk about it. But ask Jeffree what he really wants, and he’s typically deadpan. “My ultimate fantasy? Dying.”