They don't make pop stars like Pete Burns any more. As his recent appearance on "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" showed, Dead Or Alive's flamboyant frontman harks back to a time when the charts were filled with exotic creatures of all persuasions, rather than the bland, wannabe pop idols of today. No wonder he looked so out of place on the show, or that his presence seemed to unsettle the other guests. With his strange looks and warped sense of humour, he had more star quality than the rest of them put together.

Curled up on a big white sofa in his big white house in Notting Hill, dressed in low slung combats, a pretty little top, and full makeup, Burns is every bit as exotic in the flesh as he appeared on TV.

"They'd been phoning me for years, wanting me to go on the ID parade" he says with a knowing smile (knowing, of course, that a face like his would stand out a mile). "I thought: I'm not gonna do any of that! Then they asked me to be a guest on the show and I thought: Why not? The thing is, you're there for nine hours to film a half-hour show, and it gets really dull. They're all so serious and competitive, and I just couldn't get into the team spirit. I had that awful feeling that everybody's had when they're picking sides for football and nobody picks you. And I thought: I'm old enough and ugly enough not to have to put up with this."

Still, at least it put him back in the spotlight, even if most viewers were probably too young to remember who he was. It's generally assumed that Pete Burns' star burnt out in the mid-80s with "You Spin Me Round". In fact, he had a second career in Japan, shifting albums by the truckload and commanding up to a million pounds for four shows. "There's an incredible amount of freedom for me over there," he says. "I could do a hardcore porn video if I wanted to, and they'd find some way of marketing it."

Back home in London, he enjoys a different kind of celebrity these days. His recent performance at Dusty O's night club Sound on Sunday attracted a capacity crowd and had people talking for weeks. Still, the main topic of discussion wasn't his musci but his extraordinary appearance. Was he in the process of having a sex change? What was going on with those lips? And just how much plastic surgery had he had? Burns isn't telling, except to say, "It isn't nearly as much as everyone thinks, and it's not because of some profound unhappiness about who I am. Some people paint on a canvas, I paint on me."

Career-wise, there's talk of a greatest hits album and new record deal, both of which are long overdue. In the meantime, Burns is the subject of a stunning photo exhibition by Gozra Lozano and Michele Martinoli titled 'Manmade'. "People are always staring at my face," he says. "Now they can stare at it for as long as they like."

As for his reputation as the ultimate pop bitch, Pete Burns would like you to know that it doesn't bother him in the slightest. "All the bad things people say about me work in my favour, 'cos they keep people away. I don't suffer fools gladly, so I'm not gonna sit there and convince everyone that I'm a really nice person. If they think I'm a horror, that's absolutely fine with me. At the end of the day, you've got to let your legend work for you."