Skylar Grey sets herself on fire for new video

Wearing a dark hoodie, drainpipe jeans and boots she walks to the edge of a high building and stares downwards as if she might commit suicide.

But instead of jumping off the ledge she lies on a girder suspended high over the street below.

“Even when I’m walking on a wire even when I set myself on fire, I’m invisible,” she sings before taking a lighter to her face and dramatically bursting into flames.

The Grammy-nominated singer, 25, lays out a string of woes in the song, including self-harm and the pressure to look good: “I take these pills to make me thin, I dye my hair and cut my skin,' she complains.

Later singing: “I try everything to make them see me but all they see is someone that’s not me.”

The American songstress used to be called Holly Brook but she changed her name after the release of her debut album Like Blood Like Honey in 2006.

It's not clear if the song Invisible is autobiographical.