Alanis Morissette has claimed Ben Affleck questioned why she "didn't lead with my sexuality".

The 52-year-old star appeared alongside Ben in 1999's Dogma, and she referenced him during a live show this week as she reflected on "harsh judgements" and struggles she has faced throughout her career.

In a video shared by Entertainment Weekly, she told the crowd: "I even had a guy ask me why I didn't lead with my sexuality.

"Thank you, Ben Affleck."

The fans could then be heard laughing as a scene from Dogma played, showing Ben's head exploding.

Earlier in the segment, Alanis opened up on criticism after rising to fame with 1995 album Jagged Little Pill.

She said: "[I faced] harsh judgments about my songs, about my body, about how I look, about how I think, about how I feel, about my value system, about my weight, about how feral I am, about how feral I live, about my approach to parenting, about my approach to education, my approach to freaking anything."

The Ironic hitmaker also faced scrutiny "about who I love".

Elsewhere, Alanis mentioned trying to connect with Johnny Depp when she was "looking for a friend" during the tough time, but he simply responded: "Why are you calling me?"

And she had issues with women she "looked up to", like Joni Mitchell, Sinead O'Connor, Courtney Love and Tori Amos.

She said: "The sisterhood I so badly needed was truly nonexistent in the '90s. There were no girl squads then.

"The women were competitive and vicious. The scarcity message was that there was one throne, and we were all fighting for it, and whoever was in it, kill her."

The singer did credit Elliott Smith and Tupac Shakur as "outspoken brothers" who were "always very kind" to her.

Meanwhile, Alanis recently came out as pansexual on the latest episode of comediennes Tig Notaro, 55, Mae Martin, 39, and 46-year-old Fortune Feimster's Handsome podcast.

The latter wondered whether the men who inspired her breakup songs had ever made her consider pursuing relationships with women.

Alanis then shared: "I'm pansexual, so, yeah."

Surprised by the seven-time Grammy winner's revelation, Tig jumped in: "Wait, you're not really pansexual, are you?"

Alanis confirmed: "I am."

Pansexuality is a sexual, romantic or emotional attraction to people regardless of their gender identity or sex.

After Tig joked that the You Oughta Know artist should have started the podcast episode by coming out, Alanis quipped: "I like to leave it for the epilogue. I like to confuse people on the way out. Is it confusing?"