Hayley Kiyoko's fame has affected her "mental and physical health"

She told Variety: "I don't think chronic stress is a great thing to have. I think it's severely impacted my health. I've had a lot of health issues.

"Being in this industry and having such a demand to constantly show up, and be going and going and going, has definitely affected my mental and physical health. It's always been a challenge of how do I manage that stress while also still getting to pursue the things that I want to?"

Hayley battled depression and loneliness as a teenager, and the singer believes that it stemmed from hiding her true self.

The Los Angeles-born singer - who came out as a lesbian in 2015 - explained: "I didn't feel like I had a community or group of people in my life that I could really share my true emotions to or my authentic self to, and so the only person I could do that to was myself.

"When you hold in your truth, that affects your stress and your health, and even though I didn't feel safe enough to share in my environment, I was able to share and let it out through song."

Hayley now leans on her songwriting as a way of coping with her mental health concerns.

The 'Girls Like Girls' hitmaker shared: "I think I was always stressed that I was never enough or that I didn't belong, so I overcompensated on being able to do as many things that I could do. That was my defence mechanism at [the] time."