After two decades in the spotlight, Christina Aguilera has come full circle in the music business!
The 37-year-old pop star is the cover girl for the Cosmopolitan October issue — out September 4 — and in the accompanying interview she shares the benefits of all the wisdom she’s picked up over the years.
Related: Christina Reportedly Expecting A Third Child On The Way!
The interview in Cosmo centers on Aguilera’s impressive ability to re-invent herself; her most recent eighth studio album, Liberation, has her on the cover bare-faced as a way to overcome the makeup-heavy looks of her pop past.
Aguilera said about the quite-literal liberation involved (below):
“I still love getting glammed up, but I want to show imperfections on this go-round. It’s scary, but I’m up for the challenge. You can’t tell me something I haven’t already heard about myself anyway.”
Amen!!
But speaking about the past, as Aguilera alludes to, one of the more interesting parts of her interview centers on the release of her second album, Stripped, in 2002, when she rebranded herself as a bad girl with jet black hair and multiple piercings.
Related: Christina Goes Incognito As A Subway Singer — Watch!
When that happened, to Aguilera’s chagrin, her look overpowered her music, and people inevitably began comparing her Dirrty style and persona negatively to the ‘good girl’ of the day: Britney Spears.
That was very, very hard to deal with, as Christina admits now (below):
“It’s hard to hear yourself being called names. I remember being hurt by these commercials on MTV, pitting [Britney] as the good girl and me as the bad girl. It’s like, if I’m going to be demure and innocent, that’s OK. But if I’m going to just be myself, I’m trouble. I love the female body, and I think it’s something to be proud of, not something that men should dictate ownership of. Dirrty was extremely controversial at the time, but it would be nothing now. I hope I paved the way and helped set the ground rules that women can be any version of themselves they wanna be…and proud of it.”
Inneresting!!! As is often the case, this may be a far more media- and fandom-driven rivalry than anything personal between her and Spears.
Twenty years on in her career and with plenty of success to her name, it sure seems like Christina Aguilera can be proud of whatever version of herself she prefers.
P.S. You can read the full interview HERE.
[Image via Nicky Nelson/WENN.]
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